


Weregild

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: Weregild [1]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Multi, Necromancy, Shapeshifting, Vampires, WTF
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-05
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-21 01:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne survived Nikolaos by keeping her head down and playing as harmless as a young master vampire can; Jean-Claude's rule is better, but she still dreams of freedom. When bounty hunters Dominic Cobb and Arthur come to St. Louis seeking revenge for the death of Dom's wife, they set off a storm of events that may grant Ariadne's wish in a most unexpected way. Arthur/Ariadne/Eames, past Dom/Mal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What you need to know:
> 
>  **1)** This is a fusion in which I have transplanted the _Inception_ characters into the Anitaverse, as if they had always lived there. Magic and vampires exist; the PASIV does not. Character abilities and backstories have been adjusted accordingly.
> 
>  **2)** The story is set during the gap between _Obsidian Butterfly_ and _Narcissus in Chains_. All world-building and character development from the first nine Anita Blake books applies, but anything from _Narcissus in Chains_ onward will be ignored unless I specifically bring it in.
> 
>  **3)** For my convenience, I am pretending that _Guilty Pleasures_ is set in 2009, which places "Weregild" in 2011. Please ignore any technology discrepancies this causes and pretend Anita always had a cell phone in the early books.
> 
> Okay? Good. On with the story.

There were times, Ariadne thought sourly, when she was almost sure her life had been better while Nikolaos was still around. Her maker hadn't been anyone's idea of a picnic, but however cruel and capricious she'd been, she hadn't made Ariadne dress up in fetish gear and play hostess at a glorified strip club.

She tugged at the upper edge of her strapless red satin corset and smiled brightly, but close-lipped, at the two men who'd just entered Guilty Pleasures. Autumn rain dappled their coats and slicked-back hair, and they smelled faintly of gunpowder and blood. The taller and visually older was blond, tired, and most probably a lycanthrope of some kind; he had that sense of boiling energy and life, though reined in and muted. The other man, slim, dark-haired, and controlled, was harder to place. He seemed human, but oddly unfazed by his surroundings, and, of course, he was accompanying a lycanthrope. Maybe a witch, Ariadne decided.

She moved smoothly forward, noting that the blond avoided meeting her eyes. His companion showed no such caution. His eyes were dark and clear, and unreadable.

"Welcome to Guilty Pleasures," Ariadne said, reaching up to slide the dark-haired man's coat from his shoulders. Underneath, he was wearing a three piece suit: light gray trousers and jacket, a white shirt with faint blue vertical stripes, and a darker gray waistcoat with some kind of patterning woven into the fabric. His tie was dark blue with silver accents. The ensemble suited him, though it was an odd choice for this location.

"I'm Ariadne. What can I do for you tonight?"

"We're here to see your master," the blond said abruptly. "Council business. We have word on what Fisher and Saito petitioned for last month."

The dark-haired man turned and frowned at his companion. "It won't kill you to be polite now and then, Dom," he said. He glanced back at Ariadne, who had his coat draped over her left arm. "Pleased to meet you, Ariadne. I'm Arthur and this is Dominick Cobb. We have information Jean-Claude may be interested in, but it's not a matter of life and death yet. We're happy to wait while you get in touch with him."

He smiled. He had dimples, Ariadne noted.

"I'll pass word on," she said, and then, because Jean-Claude would know if she neglected the job he'd assigned her, she reached toward Cobb's shoulders. "How can we serve you while you wait?"

Cobb shrugged off his coat and tossed it into her arms before she could touch him. He was much less formally dressed than Arthur -- black jeans and a green plaid button-down shirt -- and the shirt was rumpled besides. It was hard to imagine someone so clearly uninterested in presentation knowing anything important about the Council, but Ariadne supposed stranger things had happened.

"We'll be fine with drinks and a table," Arthur said as Cobb pushed open the ante-room door and scowled at the interior of the club.

"We're happy to provide," Ariadne said. "Do you have any holy items to check? No? Then follow me."

She left their coats with the human cloakroom attendant and led the two men through the main room, threading her way neatly between tables and ignoring any covetous or fearful eyes. The current stage act was one of the sillier ones -- a male and female vampire dressed in nothing but feathers acting out a passion play where she turned him and they had elaborately simulated sex when he rose. Ariadne tuned it out with the ease of long practice. Her guests paid similarly little attention, despite the mild mass hypnosis effect someone was exerting from backstage.

Ariadne tucked that observation away for later analysis.

There were several smaller rooms off to the side of the club for guests who wanted more intimate -- or specialized -- attention. Ariadne doubted Arthur and Cobb were interested in a lapdance or a feeding, but she thought they'd appreciate the privacy and soundproofing.

It would also be easier for the staff to keep track of them, but there was no need to advertise that.

"Here you go," Ariadne said, pulling aside a heavy velvet curtain to reveal an oak door with iron braces. She unhooked the small antique key from one of her corset rings and unlocked the room, opening the door with a minor flourish. "I'll send one of the bartenders over to take your order," she said as Cobb pushed past her. She handed the key to Arthur as he followed.

"Thank you, Ariadne," Arthur said, and shut the door.

Ariadne waited until she heard the lock turn from inside. Then she threaded her way back across the main floor to the bar, where she sent one of the human staff to deal with the private room. She ducked backstage and grabbed an unoccupied stripper -- Julian, a vampire twice her age who would never be a master -- and told him to play host until she got back. She crossed his half hour off the night's schedule and told three other acts to tack ten minutes on to their sessions to cover the gap. A manager's work was never done.

Then she slipped out the back door into the alley, leaned against the brick wall, and indulged in a few seconds of panic.

If everyone was very lucky, nothing would come of the message she was about to deliver. If not, well, Council politics had a tendency to start deadly and end worse. The last thing anyone needed was a repeat of the near-catastrophe the Earthmover had ignited when he'd come to town, or the turmoil the Traveler and the Master of Beasts had stirred up a bit later.

Unfortunately, the last thing anyone needed had a diabolical way of happening, especially since Jean-Claude had taken over and brought the Executioner deeper and deeper into the underworld.

Love and vampire politics were a bad mix, Ariadne thought, but there was no way on earth she'd willingly criticize Jean-Claude. He might not be as bad as Nikolaos, but he was still a master vampire raised in the old Council traditions, and Ariadne had no interest in finding out how far his tolerance ran. She hadn't survived fifty-eight years to die stupidly just when she might finally have the resources to strike out on her own.

Speaking of which, she'd best get moving before someone noticed she was dawdling.

Ariadne pulled herself together and took to the sky, heading for the Circus of the Damned.

\---------------------------------------------

"She seemed nice," Arthur said as he pulled out a chair at the small, ornate table. The private room was done up in standard historical film opulence -- overly plush furniture, lots of gilding, carving, and reflective glass elements all around, presumably the better for guests to see themselves and their chosen entertainers. Typical of a vampire-owned establishment. Something about death seemed to ruin people's concept of subtlety in fashion and interior décor.

Dom grunted and continued to stare down at his hands.

"Too nice for this place, to be honest," Arthur continued, talking more to himself than his unresponsive friend. "I'd peg her at fifty or sixty years dead, and only a master for the last two or three of those. Usually vampires who reach that age and power come off more hardened. This Ariadne still feels sweet."

"She survived Nikolaos and the chaos that's been boiling over here the past couple years. Don't take her surface for her heart," Dom said, lifting his head to meet Arthur's eyes.

"So you were paying attention," Arthur said, half amused and half annoyed. "Good. Pay attention to this, too -- we can't afford to get on Jean-Claude's bad side yet. Once he receives official notice that the Council has agreed to hold the challenge to replace the Earthmover in St. Louis, we'll have an excuse to stay as part of Saito's entourage, but right now there's nothing but manners and curiosity to stop Jean-Claude from kicking us out or siccing Ms. Blake on us. Get hold of yourself and quit lashing out."

"I am not lashing out," Dom muttered, dropping his head to stare at his hands again.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to stave off his growing headache. "Right. Fine. You're the soul of patience and courtesy. Just _try_ to remember we have a plan, and things will go much more smoothly if we can convince Jean-Claude it's not in his interests to support Fisher or extend more than basic hospitality to his party. I'd love to persuade him to throw his voice to Saito, if only for the confusion factor, but that's probably too much to ask for even if we manage to charm him."

Dom grunted.

Arthur tipped his chair back and stared at the ceiling, wondering why he bothered. Yes, Dom was his friend -- the only close friend he'd had since dead things had started following him home in junior high -- and yes, they both owed Mal's killer as brutal a revenge as they could manage, but when Dom was having one of his bad periods, wrangling him was, appropriately enough, like trying to take a particularly lethargic and bull-headed tiger for a walk as if it were a pet dog. Not easy, and liable to end with Arthur's hand bitten off... metaphorically speaking, of course. There was no way he'd let Dom bite him for real.

Someone knocked on the door. Probably the bartender Ariadne had promised to send.

Arthur stood and turned the key in the lock. "Yes?" he said, opening the door a bare two inches and staring into the eyes of the vampire on the other side.

The vampire, a rather weedy young man who couldn't be more than two years dead, glanced aside and flashed his fangs nervously. "Um, I'm supposed to take your drink orders? Ariadne said?"

"Yes, she did. Please bring a Black Russian for me and a bottle of whatever local microbrew is darkest for Mr. Cobb," Arthur said. He closed the door without waiting for confirmation.

"Now who needs to work on his manners?" Dom said, a hint of amusement surfacing in his tired voice.

"There's a difference between expecting servers to be competent and treating master vampires like toddlers," Arthur said as he returned to his seat. "Besides, I said please."

"So you did," Dom agreed. He slung his right arm over the back of his chair and looked across the table at Arthur, squinting a bit in the dim light though Arthur knew he could see perfectly well. "Do you think Jean-Claude will get back to us tonight? Or will he make us wait?"

Arthur shrugged. "If I were him, I'd make us wait -- we told his people our errand wasn't too urgent and either he has no idea who we are and therefore no reason to show consideration, or he does know who we are and would prefer not to be seen giving us too much credence. Then again, he's known for being unpredictable and I don't know if he has any sources within the Council structure these days. He might think accurate information is more important than playing status games."

"When pigs fly," Dom said bitterly. "All vampires play power games, no matter how much they try to pretend otherwise. Even Mal was no exception."

"Mal wanted power to protect what was hers -- to protect the children and us," Arthur said, leaning across the table to touch Dom's wrist. "You know that."

Dom yanked his hand back and turned away.

They sat in silence for a few minutes until someone knocked on the door again.

"It's unlocked," Arthur said, but the knob didn't turn. Either the soundproofing was top notch or the server was pretending it was, the better to lull them into false security so someone could eavesdrop later on. Best to assume the latter.

Arthur stood and went to collect their drinks, nodding his thanks to the nervous bartender. This time, he locked the door. "Cheers," he said as he handed the beer to Dom and dropped into his chair.

Dom muttered something unintelligible in reply.

Arthur sipped his drink and took a moment to savor the tinge of vaguely coffee-and-chocolate flavor. There was no way to mistake a Black Russian for anything but alcohol -- the Kahlúa did nothing to disguise the vodka's burn -- which Arthur appreciated. It kept him from underestimating how much he was drinking.

Dom was nearly done with his beer already. Arthur wondered if he should have ordered two. Then he thought about Dom meeting vampires when drunk, or himself trying to manhandle his friend back to their cheap motel, and winced. No, best to simply take his edge off and leave it at that.

He took another sip of his drink. "Eames says Fisher should reach St. Louis in three days -- Sunday night. I'd assume Saito will time his arrival to match, but I haven't spoken to him since yesterday. Has he contacted you?"

Dom shook his head. "I wouldn't forget to tell you something that important," he said. "Stop acting like you're my babysitter. I have a good two hundred years on you, remember?"

"Age means nothing if you don't learn from it," Arthur said mildly.

Before Dom could reply, the lock clicked -- somebody outside the room had another key -- and the door swung soundlessly open.

\---------------------------------------------

Ariadne trailed a respectful three steps behind Asher as he swept through Guilty Pleasures, casually blanking his presence from the minds of the human patrons. He was not a vampire to cross at the best of times, and something about Arthur and Cobb, or the news they carried, had him both worried and angry.

She hadn't expected that. She'd figured she'd deliver her news and be given a message to tell the strangers to wait a day or two, but when she'd reached the lower levels of the Circus and spoken to Asher in lieu of Jean-Claude, he'd gone terribly cold and still for a long moment before bursting into motion. A passing vampire had been sent to notify Jean-Claude, a wolf had been ordered to call the Executioner, and Asher himself had streaked through the sky toward Guilty Pleasures with Ariadne struggling to match his pace.

Things had finally seemed to be settling down this past year -- the Council had stopped harassing Jean-Claude, the werewolves weren't oppressing the other shifter groups, and the Executioner had managed to keep her chaos mostly out of state -- but apparently even the illusion of peace was too good to last.

"Key," Asher said, holding out his hand.

Ariadne unhooked the duplicate key to the private room from her corset and passed it over.

Asher unlocked the door and pushed it open without bothering to knock or announce himself. Then he stopped dead and laughed, sharp and humorless.

"Still the optimist, Arthur?" he said, stepping sideways so Ariadne could enter the room.

"I would say a cautious realist," Arthur answered, holding his gun steady with both hands, its muzzle aimed toward Asher's chest. "You can almost certainly evade my shot, but the evasion will buy time for Dom to retaliate and I doubt your companion is fast enough to evade me as well. Shall we call it a draw and have a conversation like civilized people?"

Asher tipped his head in a shallow nod, his long blond hair swinging forward to shadow the good side of his face as well as the ruined right half. "As you will. Ariadne, close the door and sit down."

Ariadne obeyed, hooking the key onto her corset with its numerous fellows. Arthur slipped his gun back into its holster under his suit jacket and resumed his place at the small table. He smiled absently at Ariadne, then fixed his gaze on Asher's collarbone.

Interesting that he'd meet Ariadne's eyes but not Asher's.

"Dominick Cobb. And Arthur. I confess I am surprised at your claim to have information about private Council business," Asher said, sinking into a chair and steepling his fingers. "I was not aware that you had any contacts within the community after Mallorie's death. But perhaps you are still tied to Saito?"

Cobb twitched and rather jerkily waved a hand. "Saito doesn't appreciate failures. We haven't spoken since San Francisco. But I know people and Arthur knows people. Bounty hunters wouldn't be much use if we didn't have good networks."

"Bounty hunters would also be of little use if they were not compensated for their work," Asher said mildly.

"True," Arthur agreed, his face neutral and his voice equally mild.

"I will be blunt, then," Asher said. "What do you want in return for your news?"

"First, safe passage in St. Louis for two weeks," Cobb said, leaning forward and steepling his own hands, though he looked at Asher's chin rather than meet his eyes. "Second, any information you have on Peter Lebrun. Third, a request from either you or Jean-Claude to Belle Morte to tell Musette we're off her list of suggested targets. Mal is dead. We're not affiliated with Belle Morte's line anymore, so she has no authority for us to flout. It's a waste of her time and resources not to let us go."

Asher's power flooded the room. Ariadne held herself very still. Cobb twitched again, smelling faintly of nervousness and exhaustion, but didn't turn aside. Arthur remained neutrally unreadable to all Ariadne's senses.

"The third, I can grant, though Belle Morte chooses her own course and my word means nothing to her," Asher said eventually. "The first will be Jean-Claude's choice, but as his second, I can promise you one night's grace while he decides. The second..." He trailed off, then resumed. "I assume you still seek vengeance for Mallorie's death and the loss of her territory?"

"Lebrun will die at our hands," Arthur said calmly. "It's only a question of time and method."

This time Asher's laughter held genuine humor, spilling warm and soft through the room. "You will need quite a lot of luck to manage that improbability, my friends. If Peter was strong enough to best Mallorie despite the amplification you gave to her power, how do you expect to challenge him without her to protect you from his gifts? You are not a triumvirate anymore. You are simply the broken remnants."

Cobb's hands clenched and he made a move as if to stand, but Arthur put a hand on his wrist to settle him. "Everyone needs a goal in life," he said. "Reaching it is often irrelevant."

Which was a lie, of course -- revenge as a goal was meaningless unless it was consummated -- but Arthur wasn't making any effort to seem convincing. Asher let the evasion go for the moment. Ariadne relaxed marginally.

"To impossible goals," Asher said, raising his hand as if holding an invisible glass. "I will ask Jean-Claude about that as well, but the final decision is not mine. Now. What information do you bring to us?"

Cobb smiled, thin and bitter. "We bring it to Jean-Claude, not to his second."

Asher snarled.

Cobb snarled back, intangible heat flaring to match the chill of Asher's power. Arthur tilted his chair onto its rear legs and looked up at the ceiling, as if an alpha lycanthrope and a centuries-old master vampire in a temper were of no concern. "Patience is a virtue," he said.

Ariadne calculated the distance between herself and the door, and reached the sinking conclusion she couldn't get the door unlocked fast enough to escape any eruption of violence, besides which Asher would remember her disloyalty. She had an equally sinking certainty she didn't want to face Arthur or Cobb in a fight, though the exact nature of their powers remained unknown to her.

Fortunately, Asher recovered his composure.

"I will pass your requests to Jean-Claude," he said. "You have twenty-four hours' grace on my word. Jean-Claude will decide your fate after that."

"What proof do we have to offer any who might challenge?" Cobb asked.

Asher turned to Ariadne. "Fetch paper and pen."

Ariadne fled the room with relief, and then realized, halfway through fetching a sheet of parchment and a fountain pen from her office -- Asher liked archaic touches for formal documents when he didn't have to conform to modern paperwork standards -- that she had to return to deliver them. Some of the entertainers picked up on her nerves as she hurried through the backstage area, but Ariadne forestalled any questions with a shake of her head and the murmured words, "Asher's business."

She knocked before she unlocked the door.

Asher wrote something on the parchment in a fluid, ornamental hand, then pricked his thumb on his fang and pressed a bloody print underneath his signature as an additional mark of authority. "There," he said, folding the parchment and handing it across the table to Cobb. "Safe passage until next midnight. I assume you wish to take rooms underneath the Circus, so as to be available when Jean-Claude agrees to see you."

Arthur shook his head. "No. We already have rooms at a motel, and we prefer not to intrude on any master's place of power. I'm sure Jean-Claude would prefer not to be seen offering us too much hospitality either."

Asher frowned. "Very well. Ariadne will accompany you to your lodgings, in that case, so we will know where to send the summons. Enjoy the rest of your night."

He stood and swept from the room in a trail of blond hair and silk.

Ariadne stared across the table at the two men she'd just been assigned to escort and possibly guard, and wondered what she'd done to deserve the never-ending chaos and power plays of the preternatural world instead of a quiet mortal life.

Probably nothing. She supposed she simply had bad luck. After fifty-eight years, though, she thought she was due a change.

"Shall we go?" she asked. "Or would you like another drink before we leave?"

\---------------------------------------------

Arthur stared at the vampire who'd just been foisted on him and Dom as their prison guard by any other name. Ariadne was tiny and delicate, her dark brown hair worn long, loose, and slightly wavy, and her eyes dark against her pale skin. She looked like a china doll, not that he would say that to her face. Vampires who were small or who'd been turned young -- and while he was fairly sure Ariadne had been at least in her late teens when she breathed her last, he would be astonished if she'd been much over drinking age -- could be violently sensitive about their appearances.

Even when they weren't wearing nothing but a scarlet corset festooned with tiny silver keys, scarlet silk stockings held up with black garter belts, a black silk ribbon pretending to be a necklace, and three-inch black stiletto heels.

"We can leave whenever you want," Arthur said, "but if you'd like to change or find a coat..."

Ariadne glanced down at her outfit and went still for a second. "Oh. Right. Wait here."

She slipped from the room almost faster than Arthur could track, leaving the door open behind her. The heavy velvet curtain still blocked Dom and Arthur from the sight of anyone in the club's main room, but they could hear the slinky, pounding music and potentially be overheard in turn.

"Thank god," Dom said, standing and stalking back and forth along the back wall. "That girl is far too young to be wearing that outfit."

"She's older than I am," Arthur pointed out. He tipped his chair back again and added, unable to resist, "Besides, I think she carries it off well. Did you _see_ her legs?"

Dom smacked the top of his head, mussing Arthur's hair slightly. "Don't even start. I don't care if she's your type -- she works for Jean-Claude and she's going to tell everyone where we're sleeping."

"We can take shifts if you're feeling paranoid," Arthur said.

"Maybe we should," said Dom, and continued his pacing, frustration and a mild case of nerves practically boiling off him. Arthur stared at the ceiling and started running scenarios for tomorrow's likely meeting with Jean-Claude. The Master of the City would almost certainly want to start from a place of intimidating strength, which suggested they'd be called underneath the Circus. Hopefully Arthur wouldn't have to relinquish his gun and knives -- not that he expected them to do him much good while he was surrounded by Jean-Claude's people, but if nothing else they would give him peace of mind, which would translate usefully to confident body language and a lack of fear scents.

They would also be invaluable if things went sideways and he was forced to fight a duel, which was sadly more probable than he might wish. Vampire politics had a way of turning both personal and deadly at the most inconvenient times.

Ariadne knocked on the frame of the open door, her right arm holding the curtain halfway aside. "Your drinks are on the house, gentlemen," she said. "Unless you have any other business to take care of...?"

Arthur glanced at Dom, who shook his head. "We're ready."

Ariadne pulled the curtain back while they exited the room, then led them across the increasingly lust-soaked main floor of the club, neatly avoiding any physical contact with the occasionally rowdy patrons. None of them seemed to recognize her without her work clothes, despite her pale skin and the lingering sense of stillness all vampires carried after a few decades.

That was less surprising than it seemed, though. Ariadne had changed into brown corduroys and a pink t-shirt, the black ribbon necklace had been replaced by a gauzy golden scarf, and a red knit jacket was tied around her waist. Even her power was tightly pulled in and muted. If he couldn't feel that she was a master vampire, Arthur thought he might have taken her for a college student, someone young and utterly harmless. Most people searching for a threat or challenge would skip right over her. That wasn't a strategy designed to gain power or influence. It was a strategy designed for survival.

Arthur wondered what she'd be like if she let down her guard.

Then he stomped on that thought with extreme prejudice. Dom was right. Ariadne was beholden to Jean-Claude, and this was not the time to indulge in anything that might distract from their plan. They were already juggling too many variables.

"Where are you staying?" Ariadne asked as they stepped out into the cool autumn night. The air was still thick with the promise of rain, though the clouds had let up for the moment and Arthur didn't have to regret his lack of an umbrella.

"The Motel 6 off I-270, near Bellefontaine Road," Dom said, hurrying down the steps to the street and shrugging his coat on over his shoulders. "You're driving," he added to Arthur.

Sensible. If things went sour, Dom could get his claws into Ariadne's throat faster and more reliably than Arthur could pull his gun and take a shot.

Dom led the way to a municipal parking garage just outside the Blood District. It was filled with cars at this time of night: a high percentage of the tourists and regular visitors didn't like to admit they were coming to see the vampires, and wanted the plausible deniability of parking somewhere not in full view of all the other gawkers. The whole thing was ridiculous, of course. Since there was nothing else of interest for several blocks on all sides of the District, anyone parking in the garage was visiting the District, and they could all see each other, but human nature was frequently ridiculous and rarely logical. Arthur had learned to appreciate the resulting humor over the years.

When they reached the rental car -- a blue Ford Focus sedan -- Arthur pulled the keys from his coat pocket and pressed the automatic unlock button. "No, take the other side," he said when Ariadne moved to open the driver's side rear door. "Dom sits behind me."

"A few extra inches won't make you much safer," she said, but she walked around the car without further protest.

They drove to the motel in silence. Halfway there, Ariadne sighed and leaned her head against the corner where the seatback met the door. It was a terribly human gesture.

Arthur wondered what she meant by it.

He pulled into the motel's driveway and parked the car neatly outside the room he and Dom were sharing. "Here we are, #106. Home sweet home for as long as your master lets us stay," he said as he pulled out the keys and opened his door. "Do you have a cell phone or would you like to use the room phone to call for a ride?"

"That won't be necessary, but I do need to come inside for a minute to check that you aren't hiding any objects or people Jean-Claude should know about," Ariadne said as she slid out of the car. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

An apologetic vampire. Wonders would never cease. Even Mal, lovely as she'd been, had only rarely apologized, and never so easily and openly.

Arthur glanced at Dom, who grimaced and shrugged. They were here on Jean-Claude's sufferance; they had no real recourse if his people got pushy. "Be our guest," Arthur said as Dom slid the keycard into the reader and pushed the heavy door open -- not quite a formal invitation, but close enough for a residence as temporary and flimsy as a motel.

Ariadne walked into the room and looked around with an expression of polite interest. Arthur knew she wouldn't find anything to report. They hadn't left anything incriminating in the open, for the very good reason that they hadn't brought anything incriminating. His weapons were perfectly reasonable for a human who lived and worked around the preternatural, his clothes in the closet and Dom's folded in the dresser were clean and the pockets empty, and while a cautious person might insist on taking away his laptop, most vampires hadn't yet gotten into the habit of paying attention to modern technology when dealing with people they considered part of their own society rather than part of the outside business world.

Sure enough, while Ariadne frowned at the laptop for a minute, she left it alone and charging on the motel table.

"You're very tidy for two men living alone," Ariadne said after opening the bathroom door and verifying that nobody was hiding in the shower. "One last thing, and I'll leave you alone for the night."

Arthur opened his mouth to ask what further hoop they needed to jump through, but the words never left his mouth.

Ariadne's power spread through the motel room like cool strands of silk writhing over his clothes, touching and tasting every inch of his skin, wrapping tighter and tighter until they seemed to sink into his bones, reaching for his very self. Arthur tensed, snapping into the cold, dark place he used both to raise the dead and kill the living. Distantly, he thought he heard Dom growl and felt the faint heat that meant his beast was rising nearly to the surface, but all Arthur's attention was fixed on Ariadne, his eyes locked to hers, which had grown so dark they seemed to swallow all the ambient light until all he could see was their captured glow.

And then her power snapped back, gone as quickly as it had appeared.

"Thank you," she said, and stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

By the time Arthur flung it open, she was gone.

\---------------------------------------------

Ariadne flew to the roof of the motel and pressed herself flat against the bare concrete until she heard Arthur curse and shut the heavy door to his room. Then she dusted herself, sat cross-legged, and stopped pretending to be human.

It was easy to be still. For all that her body feigned life and her heart pumped stolen blood through her arteries, she'd been a corpse for three nights until Nikolaos's power convinced dead flesh to wake. Stillness was every vampire's base state, a pale reflection of the death their last sparks of mortality were wrapped in.

Ariadne closed her eyes and reached into the heart of her power, touching and tasting the essence of the two men below her. Yes. She had them; she knew them. So long as they remained within her range, she could track and identify them no matter how well they hid. Jean-Claude would be pleased at that advantage.

Ariadne set aside the memory of Cobb's power. He was definitely a lycanthrope, most probably an alpha, but the only sure thing she could say about his species was that he wasn't a fox. His beast didn't have the tactile closeness of an animal she could call.

Arthur's power, though. That memory she drew up and savored. He tasted of darkness, stillness and silence: an echo of death wrapped in mortal life instead of the other way around. Like the Executioner, only without the constant pulse of fury disturbing the peace of the grave.

Arthur was an animator.

Jean-Claude most likely knew that already, since Asher had been familiar with both Arthur and Cobb, but Ariadne planned to report the information anyway. Jean-Claude knew she could distinguish basic types of magic when she read power signatures. If she didn't tell him everything she'd learned, he would know she was holding back. Then he would start wondering what else she might be keeping secret.

She preferred him not to pay attention to her.

Ariadne waited half an hour to see if either Arthur or Cobb planned to leave the motel, but the door remained shut. When she took a chance and drifted down to lean against the curtained window, she heard the shower running. They would almost certainly stay put for the rest of the night.

Ariadne flew back to Guilty Pleasures, which had slowly started to empty out -- only the hardcore vampire junkies tended to stay past one o'clock, when the stage shows ended. The private rooms were all occupied, however, which was a good sign. The club had been running slightly in the red since Robert's death and Jean-Claude's decision to add female acts to the male lineup. Ariadne had been trying to play up the club's reputation as the oldest legal vampire strip club in America, raising the atmosphere a bit. Apparently that was starting to pay off with the more serious clientele.

She wished she could dump the manager's job on someone else altogether, but orders were orders, and Jean-Claude knew she was good with numbers.

Ariadne debated over feeding before she went to face her master. She had an agreement with most of the bartenders -- it was astonishing how much more amenable humans became to such things if she promised never to bite them and allowed them to open their own flesh with their own knives -- but Jean-Claude might interpret that as insubordination. And there were always willing bodies at the Circus.

She decided to remain hungry for the moment, and made sure the closing staff knew not to wait for her before shutting down. Then she began walking through the District toward the Circus of the Damned, delaying the inevitable a few extra minutes.

Jason Schuyler, Jean-Claude's _pomme de sang_ , opened the back door wearing a smarmy grin on his face and not much by way of clothing -- just black leather shorts and a strategically torn sleeveless white t-shirt that left vast swathes of his torso bare. His nipples were peaked and obvious in the cool autumn breeze. Jean-Claude's idea of advertising, Ariadne supposed. She admitted his body was attractive, but short blonds weren't her type, even discounting the turn-off of Jason's personality.

"Hello, pretty lady," Jason said, sliding a half-step forward and trying to wrap an arm around her waist. "The boss wants to see you ASAP."

Ariadne caught his wrist and squeezed, hard enough to break human bones. She counted to ten, opened her fingers, and watched a bruise bloom and fade on Jason's skin. "You belong to Jean-Claude and I'm not interested. Hands off."

"One day you'll give in and admit you like me," Jason said, still grinning, but he backed off a respectful two steps and kept his hands to himself as he led Ariadne down under the Circus. "I'm not asking for much, just a smile and maybe a laugh at one or two of my jokes. Even Anita gives me that much."

Ariadne rolled her eyes. "I'll laugh when you're funny. Right now, you're simply immature, annoying, and overly forward." In fact, most preternatural creatures who weren't utterly submissive tended to be overly forward. Dominance hierarchies might be the most effective way to maintain order among predators, but they tended to give the people the delusion that power could substitute for consent.

"Crushed again," Jason said with an overdone sigh. Thankfully he remained silent for the rest of the descent.

Jean-Claude had a disconcerting habit of holding meetings in bedchambers, but fortunately for Ariadne's peace of mind, Jason escorted her to one of what she thought of as the small audience rooms -- stone chambers Nikolaos had kept empty and dank for intimidation value, but which Jean-Claude had ordered to be cleaned, lit, and decorated in faux Sun King style. Ariadne liked the effect. She hadn't seen daylight in nearly sixty years, and the explosion of color and texture reminded her of all the things night and death had muted.

Jean-Claude was lounging behind a heavy oak desk. Asher stood like a statue at his back, arms folded and face set in disapproval. Jean-Claude was harder to read, his model-perfect features relaxed and welcoming despite the warning whisper of his power that hummed through the room.

"Go to my rooms, _mon loup,_ " he said to Jason. "I will join you presently."

Jason grinned and backed into the hallway, closing the door behind himself.

"Well?" Asher said into the resulting silence.

"Arthur and Dominick Cobb are staying in the Motel 6 off I-270 near Bellefontaine," Ariadne said. "They're alone. I tasted their powers, and I can track them anywhere in the city whenever you wish. Cobb is an alpha lycanthrope; I don't know what type. Arthur is an animator. I believe they are dangerous men, but they seem to have approached in good faith though they're wary of vampires in general and you in particular."

Report finished, she settled back on her heels and watched Jean-Claude and Asher exchange a speaking look.

"Tell me what Dominick said to Asher about Saito," Jean-Claude said.

Ariadne blinked, reaching back to that tense conversation. "He said... that Saito doesn't like failure, and that he hadn't spoken to them since San Francisco."

Jean-Claude swept his hand through the air in a cutting gesture. " _Non,_ Ariadne, not in your words. Give me his words. Exactly as he spoke them."

Ariadne closed her eyes and concentrated, drawing on the memory for detail that she'd cultivated out of sheer terror of missing some nuance that Nikolaos wanted to know. "Asher said, 'But perhaps you are still tied to Saito?' Cobb said, 'Saito doesn't appreciate failures. We haven't spoken since San Francisco.' He seemed nervous and awkward, but he was nervous and awkward through most of the conversation." She opened her eyes. "That's all."

"He did not lie," Asher insisted.

Jean-Claude turned his head to look up at his second. "I do not doubt you, _mon chardonneret,_ " he said, his voice like a warm caress. "However, the truth a man speaks is not always the same as the truth another hears. Speech is not the only way to remain in contact, and depending on who Dominick meant by 'we,' there is nothing to tell us that Saito has not spoken to Arthur. Saito is a master of deep and subtle games, and Dominick spent a half century dancing attendance on the Council as Mallorie's tiger. We would be unwise to underestimate them."

"We would be unwise to overestimate them, too. Without Mallorie to bind them, Dominick and Arthur have no standing and little power. They cannot touch you," Asher said.

This time, Jean-Claude's gesture was languid, an airy dismissal. "Yes, yes, I know. But their presence is a sign that greater forces are in play and we would do well to be alert. _Ma petite_ refused to join us tonight, but I will call and request her to attend the meeting tomorrow. You will contact Richard, since he is currently entertaining the illusion that if he ignores me, I will cease to exist. He cannot continue that foolishness. If Saito and Fisher bring their battle here, we must, as the saying goes, all hang together lest we each hang separately."

The visible half of Asher's mouth quirked upward. He leaned down to murmur something in Jean-Claude's ear, too quietly for Ariadne to distinguish the French syllables.

Ariadne cleared her throat, snapping the men's attention back to her. "Do you need me for anything else?" she asked.

Jean-Claude smiled. "Not now. When you rise tomorrow night, find Dominick and Arthur immediately and report their location to me. Tonight, you are free."

"Thank you," Ariadne said, ducking her head and stepping into the hallway. As she turned to grasp the doorknob, she saw Jean-Claude reach up to press his hand against Asher's ruined cheek. She closed the door as quietly as she could, and made her way to the more populated areas of the Circus.

She fed from one of the wolves the Ulfric had tacitly ceded to Jean-Claude, then retreated to her room and laid herself sideways on the queen-sized canopy bed Jean-Claude had given her when she'd expressed her dislike for sleeping in a coffin. It was larger than she usually needed -- her only dalliance since Nikolaos's death had mostly taken place at her lover's house, until he decided he wanted children and dumped her for a human woman -- but it had been a nice gesture, and she liked the extravagance of the silk hangings contrasted to the dark solidity of the wooden frame and posts.

But enough drifting.

Ariadne spread her arms wide and closed her eyes, falling into the center of her power. She had been special to Nikolaos because she could find anyone -- not just people to whom she had a link, like a human servant or a mind-rolled puppet. Jean-Claude used her tracking skills too. But neither of her masters had known the deeper half of Ariadne's gift.

She reached for the taste of Arthur and Cobb, and tiptoed into their dreams.

\---------------------------------------------

Every person dreamed uniquely, if only because every person carried a different collection of memories and preoccupations down into sleep, to be rearranged over and over like a demented jigsaw puzzle with infinite possible solutions.

On a more practical level, Ariadne had found that dreams tended to fall into four broad categories: replays of events that held emotional significance to a dreamer; mangled fragments of a dreamer's recent life; embodiments of a dreamer's current worries, either straightforward or in symbolic form; and scrambled flights of fancy with no obvious source in anything from waking life. The second and third type were most useful. Memory dreams tended to be obscure unless she knew the dreamer well, and the fourth type -- the utterly batshit dreams, as she sometimes called them -- were worthless to anyone but a fantasy writer seeking new story ideas.

Tonight, Cobb was dreaming in slightly skewed memories. Ariadne settled herself on the outskirts of his mind and watched.

\-----

_He stands in a fashionable Paris salon, feeling terribly out of place in his jeans and t-shirt. Everyone must be staring at him, murmuring about naïve colonials. He has no idea how Dr. Franklin ignores the constant stares and whispers._

_And then he looks across the room and sees Her, looking at him. Her hair curls softly around her face, stray tendrils escaping the elaborate styling; her eyebrows are a rich brown, and he thinks her hair would share that color, free of its dusting of powder. Her eyes are a grayish blue, like skies that promise coming rain after a drought. Her hands, when she moves them, are both delicate and strong._

_He wouldn't mind if she stared and whispered. She can do anything she wants._

_Suddenly they're standing side by side, and she smiles and offers her hand. "Mallorie Deschain," she says, when he asks her name. "You are Dominick Cobb, secretary to the estimable Dr. Franklin. You are very brave, to have come across the ocean knowing the English would hang you if they should catch your ship."_

_Her accent caresses each word like honey._

_She is ten years older than he is, at least. She is beautiful. She is rich. She is perfect._

_He has no idea what she sees in him, why she lets him marry her, why she carries his child._

_They are perfectly, perfectly happy._

_They are coming home from the theater, standing on the street outside their rented house to enjoy the night air and a handful of minutes to pretend they are still lovers instead of responsible parents. She laughs, her cheeks flushed with joy and wine, and she takes a step away from his hands to twirl, her skirts rising around her ankles._

_The vampires kill her. They throw her to the ground and savage her, while he lies crumpled on the steps of his own home. They seize her body and flee, leaving nothing but a trail of gore than ends, impossibly, in the middle of an open street._

_He goes mad._

_///_

_He stands in a fashionable Paris salon, feeling terribly out of place in his trench coat and shabby suit..._

\-----

Ariadne pulled back to catch her metaphorical breath. Dreams could whiplash hard enough to shake her sense of reality, years of scattered joys and despairs condensed to a purity of emotion she rarely encountered in waking life. Cobb had loved Mallorie Deschain to the bottom of his soul. Losing her had been like losing half of himself.

Clearly they had reunited at some point, only for history to repeat itself with greater finality. No wonder Cobb dreamed of her.

But while that told Ariadne about Cobb's past, his dream revealed nothing about his present or his future plans.

Perhaps Arthur would be more informative. She slid into the edges of his mind, a silent, unnoticed observer.

\-----

_Arthur throws the phone onto the motel bed in boiling frustration and quickly repressed fear._

_"Damn it," he says, glad that Dom isn't here and he doesn't have to be the reasonable one for a few minutes._

_Fuck Eames, it's been nearly a month and not one word; what is Arthur supposed to think? He knows the bastard isn't dead -- he knows people who know people, and reputation and favors get him pretty much anywhere he needs to go, sooner or later -- and Eames is alive and sitting pretty and not following the plan._

_Fuck him._

_Arthur is going to kneecap him in St. Louis. With silver bullets. See how he likes that._

_///_

_And oh, he does like that taste. There is something about pistachio ice cream he absolutely cannot resist, which is baffling because he loathes nuts in general. Then again, he likes amaretto and marzipan, and hazelnut flavor in his coffee, so perhaps it's a general oddness._

_Arthur licks the last residue from the cheap plastic spoon and watches Mal and Dom dance to imaginary music down by the water's edge. The moon is waning gibbous in the sky, and they are as far from modern artificial lights as they can get._

_He reaches down to smooth Philippa's hair where she naps on a flannel picnic blanket, worn out from building sandcastles and chasing James through the shallow waves._

_Philippa likes pistachio ice cream too, but Arthur thinks she only says that to flatter him._

_///_

_"You flatter me," he says, his gun a reassuring weight in his hands, aimed at the blond stranger's chest. "I know your reputation. The younger vampires call you Death."_

_"You can call me Edward," the blond man says with an empty-eyed smile. "I have a proposition for you."_

_"I'm listening," Arthur says, without changing his aim._

_///_

_He changes his aim and drops the ragged woman holding the towheaded toddler like a living shield. The bullets pass within half an inch of the boy's head, but Arthur knows his aim is true._

_The little girl screams, and Arthur whirls to see her dash across the warehouse, the half-shifted werewolf in belated pursuit, distracted for that key second by Arthur's unexpected move._

_Arthur drops him as well: two shots to the chest, one to the head, and then another to each spot to make sure. He turns back to his first target. The woman is on the ground, wheezing -- lung shot, then. Her right hand is still wrapped around the toddler's arm and her left is groping for her fallen knife._

_Arthur steps on her wrist and shoots her between the eyes. Blood and bone spray over the concrete floor beneath her head, which bounces slightly from the force of impact._

_Arthur scoops up the toddler, wondering absently why the boy isn't crying, why he's reaching for the pooling blood in curiosity instead of pulling back in fear. He pulls out his cell phone and calls the police._

_///_

_"The police, the police, what can the police do!" Mal says, anger drawing her skin tight against the elegant bones of her skull, her power shining like a beacon. "This is no business for mortals. Peter Lebrun is my problem. I will solve him myself."_

_"Your problems are my problems," Dom says, stroking his hands along her bare arms._

_"Our problems," Arthur corrects. "I still think it's worth giving them a heads-up that the children may be in danger. Their attention may make Lebrun reconsider whether they're cost-effective targets, and if nothing else, it will make Marie and Miles sleep easier and stop nagging you so often."_

_Mal laughs, a brilliant, coruscating sound like a rain of flowers and precious jewels, and her face softens to something nearly human. "Ah, my Arthur, always the clever one. You are right. I will call tomorrow night."_

_///_

_Tomorrow night they meet with Jean-Claude._

_There are ten thousand ways this could go wrong. It's Arthur's job to think of them and plan around them all. He hates planning around unknowns -- he doesn't know who'll be there, he doesn't know what powers they have, he doesn't know nearly enough about Jean-Claude himself, no matter what he knows secondhand from listening to Dom and Mal reminisce or from brushing their edges of their dreams._

_Arthur aches, remembering better days. Dom's been a shade of himself since Mal died. Arthur would be too, if he didn't have to keep Dom together. Mal was the best of them both. God, he misses her._

_He misses the feel of her teeth slicing into the skin over his collarbone or pricking his wrist like kitten claws. He misses the paradoxical warmth of her power, fire springing to life from the chill of death. He misses the taste of her blood when they reaffirmed his status as her human servant. He misses the light in her eyes when she laughed. He misses her mind in his, tiptoeing playfully through his innermost thoughts. He almost thinks he can still feel her, a cool, starlit presence hovering at the edges of his mind, changed by death until her touch is like a stranger's..._

_Wait._

_///_

_Someone is in his head._

_Someone is in his head, and she isn't Mal._

_Someone is going to die._

\---------------

Arthur's power rose like a dark wave and swallowed Ariadne whole.

\---------------------------------------------

Arthur knew he was dreaming -- he had to be dreaming -- but he would almost have sworn he was awake. He stood in the empty warehouse where he'd first seen Philippa and James. Dust and unidentifiable stains covered the concrete floor, and a regiment of warped and rusted file cabinets leaned drunkenly along one wall. The other three were bare except for metal ribs running up to the ceiling, and thick, dust-coated windows twenty feet up. The corpses of the werewolf and his knife-wielding accomplice lay to the side, desiccating.

Ariadne was back in her working outfit, minus the keys and stilettos. Alternating iron and silver chains held her spread-eagled against the far wall. Crosses dangled from several links -- largely useless since Arthur wasn't Christian, but if he was using them at all they must have been blessed by someone who was, which made them slightly better than nothing. The little Torah charms dangling from other links were more effective. Arthur might not have faith in God, but he had plenty of faith in his people's history and traditions. And counterintuitive though it might seem to the more traditionally religious, so long as he had faith in something, and that faith could be represented with a tangible symbol, it didn't much matter _what_ the something was. The symbols would burn.

His Glock 17 sat solid in his hands. His finger curled against the trigger. He could destroy Ariadne in a second. He wanted to. He should.

Ariadne swallowed convulsively, another strangely human gesture. "How did--?"

"Don't," Arthur said, forcing himself to take his finger off the trigger. "I'll ask the questions." He had to think instead of react. He couldn't afford to shoot her out of hand, no matter how badly he wanted to. Nobody had any right to walk through his mind, and if Ariadne had been spying for Jean-Claude... He shifted his aim from her heart to her forehead when she seemed ready to ignore him and trying speaking again.

Ariadne closed her mouth and glared.

That was odd. He could feel her power coiling through this unreal space, weaving through and around his own gift, whatever quirk of fate gave him an affinity for the dead. Her eyes held the same luminous darkness that had snared him earlier tonight. But the overwhelming mesmeric pull was gone. Arthur could meet her eyes without drowning.

They were, he couldn't help noting, beautiful eyes. In a very pretty face.

And this was not the time, as Dom would undoubtedly say.

"Did Jean-Claude order you to enter my mind?" Arthur asked, wrenching his train of thought back under control.

Ariadne opened her mouth, then paused and raised her eyebrows in mocking query.

"You can speak to answer," Arthur said.

"Thank you," Ariadne said, sarcasm practically dripping from her voice. "Jean-Claude did not order me to enter your mind."

She was being literal. Arthur gritted his teeth and debated shooting her in the knee or foot, somewhere painful, crippling, and not immediately fatal. He decided to hold off -- the pain might simply shock her into leaving. If she could leave. He had no idea what the rules were for this jointly constructed virtual reality.

"In that case, why were you eavesdropping on my dreams?" he asked.

Ariadne remained silent.

Arthur wanted to shake her until she cooperated. He wanted to grab her bare arms and squeeze until she felt pain -- impossible, given vampiric strength and resiliency, but oh, he wanted to do something, anything, to make her pay attention. Something to make her feel as violated as he did. She'd broken into his mind, touched his memories of Mal. She had to pay for that.

The chains pinning Ariadne to the wall tightened like snakes, biting into her throat and outspread limbs. One of the charms brushed against her bare thigh for a second and flashed with actinic light -- not enough contact to sear flesh, but enough to hurt.

Ariadne's eyes flew wide and she gasped, fingers twitching uselessly upwards as if to pull the chain from her neck. "Can't. Talk." A thin, whistling breath. "W'thout. Air."

Arthur stared at the chains, surprise shunting fury aside for a moment. Had he done that? He must have; Ariadne had invaded his dreams, not the other way around. They must be in his mind. Everything here was under his control, conscious or not.

He focused on the chains, willing them to relax a fraction. They did. Fascinating. He wasn't used to lucid dreams -- even the communication he'd shared with Mal (and sometimes Dom) had been tangled in whatever stray bits of symbolism his sleeping mind had been dragging around. There was no way to mistake those dreams for reality.

Mal had been welcome in his mind, not a thief or a spy.

"Why were you in my dreams?" Arthur repeated. He corrected his aim, which had drifted slightly askew when the chains moved.

"I was curious," Ariadne said. "You're interesting -- you're an animator, you were a human servant, you travel with a weretiger, you're attractive..." She shrugged, as much as the chains would let her. "I wanted to know more about you. And you're trouble. Jean-Claude is worried about Saito and Fisher. Things that worry him tend to be dangerous. I like to know what kind of problems might be coming my way."

She thought he was attractive?

Not the time, Arthur reminded himself. Besides, he was still furious. And he'd caught an important implication from the things she had and hadn't said so far.

"Does Jean-Claude know you can dreamwalk?" he asked. He tightened the chain over Ariadne's neck for a second to remind her that he could, then gave her slack to answer.

"No," she said.

"Does anyone know?"

"...No."

Interesting. Vampires rarely kept secrets from their masters for long -- it was simply too easy for a master to delve into a lesser vampire's mind, or force a servant to speak the truth. For Ariadne to keep her gift hidden, she would need to keep it so close and private that nobody suspected the secret even existed.

And she'd survived Nikolaos. He kept coming back to that.

"What did you learn?" Arthur asked.

Another restricted shrug. "Nothing much. You were Mal's human servant. Cobb and Mal had a pair of human children in their care; you rescued them from kidnappers and Peter Lebrun may have threatened them. You know the bounty hunter called Death. You're worried about Jean-Claude. You were or are angry with a person named Eames, who was or will be in St. Louis at some point. And you like pistachio ice cream." Ariadne smiled wistfully. "I never had pistachio ice cream when I was human. It tasted nice."

Mal used to smile like that when Dom or Arthur ate her favorite foods and let her share the meal.

Arthur held his gun steady. "Are you going to tell any of that to Jean-Claude?"

"How? Should I pretend I eavesdropped on you talking to Cobb in your motel room, instead of visiting your dreams?" Ariadne asked. "If I do that, he'll ask why I didn't tell him sooner. I'd rather not draw his attention."

"You could tell him tomorrow," Arthur pointed out.

"I could," Ariadne agreed. "If I thought you had plans to kill him, I would. Jean-Claude is the Master of the City. I live here on his sufferance and his strength protects me from needing to fight for territory of my own. I'd prefer not to throw St. Louis into chaos so soon after Nikolaos's death."

Arthur frowned at her. "What makes you think Jean-Claude isn't our target?"

Ariadne smiled, her lips drawing slowly back until her fangs were unmistakable. "Jean-Claude is not allied with Peter Lebrun," she said. "Nor is he allied with Fisher. Rather the contrary, after Fisher's actions during his visit to St. Louis thirty years ago. Jean-Claude is, of course, not allied with Saito either, but that could change if you convince him his self-interest lies in that direction. He's a practical man, under the sex and frippery."

"And I suppose you're suggesting you could help," Arthur said, oddly disappointed at Ariadne's display of typical vampire self-interest.

Ariadne continued to smile. "Not at all," she said. "I don't know what you want besides Peter Lebrun's death, and while I sympathize for your loss, it would be pointless for me to join your quest for vengeance. You're not _that_ interesting. All I'm offering is to keep my mouth shut about anything I may piece together from hints in your dreams, if you keep your mouth shut about my ability to enter them."

"Given what you said you learned, that benefits you rather more than me," Arthur pointed out.

"It does," Ariadne agreed. "On the other hand, you don't know if I was lying. And you can't keep me here forever."

Arthur tightened the chains again. The same little charm brushed against Ariadne's thigh and flashed with heat and light.

"We're in my mind. I make the rules," he reminded her.

Despite the pain she had to be feeling, Ariadne smiled. "It's your dream. But it's still a dream, and I'm dreaming too. You're not the only one who can change things."

There was a sudden noise off to the side. Arthur whirled, one breath too late to stop the shambling corpse of the werewolf from tackling him to the floor. The ragged woman, now nothing more than bones and Ariadne's will, sank her knife into Arthur's throat.

He choked on blood and pain, gun falling from nerveless fingers, concentration shattered.

"Until tomorrow night, Arthur," Ariadne's voice murmured, as their dream dissolved into static.

\---------------------------------------------

Ariadne's eyes snapped open and her hands flew to her throat, verifying the lack of chains and burning charms. She was on her own bed, in her own room, wearing her own clothes instead of the work costume Arthur's mind had dressed her in. She was awake.

None of that had happened.

And yet.

She lowered her arms, mimicking the spread-eagle position she'd been chained in. That dream had felt _real_. She'd spoken to Arthur -- to his conscious mind. She'd never done that before. Even when she'd dared to whisper around the edges of dreams, she'd only ever touched stutter-start fragments thrown up by subconscious minds oblivious to her presence.

Arthur was as dangerous as she'd suspected. He'd never get the drop on her like that in real life, not unless he found her during the day, while she might as well be dead, but even so. To catch her mind and turn her own gift against her...

He was a very interesting man. And quite attractive, even in gray sweatpants and a rumpled black t-shirt which claimed that book lovers never slept alone.

Ariadne sat up and checked the battery-powered alarm clock beside her bed. The glowing numbers promised her another three hours until dawn. That was plenty of time to find one of the older vampires and start gathering details about Mallorie Deschain and Dominick Cobb, their feud with Peter Lebrun, and Mallorie's fascinating human servant.

If she was lucky, Arthur would keep her secret. He and Cobb would leave St. Louis shortly, taking their trouble with them, and Ariadne wouldn't need to know more about them.

But luck was rarely her friend.

Someone knocked on her door and began to open it before Ariadne could give a verbal invitation. She sat up hastily as the door swung wide, revealing Asher leaning against the frame.

"Do you need me for anything?" she asked.

"Not now," Asher said. "But tomorrow night, Jean-Claude wants you to fetch Dominick and Arthur as soon as you locate them. We will meet under the Circus, an hour past sunset. Wear something appropriate."

"I understand," Ariadne said, ducking her head in a show of respect.

Asher smiled, gently. "We will protect you, little sister, but you must remember you are a master vampire, however young. You can't hide your fangs forever."

He pulled the door shut and left, too quiet and fast for Ariadne to track.

She flopped back down on her bed and indulged in a minute of frustrated anger. So. Not only was Jean-Claude dragging her right into the middle of the politics she'd tried so long and hard to avoid, he was forcing her back into contact with Arthur. Who knew her secret.

He could ruin her if he wanted.

Well then. She would just have to make sure he didn't want to, or that if he tried, she was in a position to ruin him first.

\---------------------------------------------

Arthur woke fast and cold, his breathing even and his body still through long force of habit. After a moment he remembered where he was, and heard Dom's snuffling wheeze in the other bed. Safe, then.

He pulled his gun out from under the other pillow just in case. Then he shoved his bare feet into his shoes and stole out of the room to walk around the motel building, shivering as the cool night breeze sent fingers up the loose ankles of his sweatpants and kissed his bare forearms. He saw nothing out of place. That didn't mean no one was lurking -- he was good, but he could never be as fast as a vampire or lycanthrope -- but there was a line between reasonable caution and outright paranoia that he'd prefer not to cross.

Arthur returned to the rented room and paused, letting his eyes readjust to darkness after the artificial twilight of the motel parking lot. By the window, Dom turned in his sleep and mumbled, "'thur? Wha's wrong?"

"Nature called. Go back to sleep, Dom," Arthur said.

He slipped into the bathroom, turned on the brilliant fluorescent light, and stared himself down in the mirror, trying to think.

What on earth had happened? How had Ariadne broken in to his dreams? He'd never heard of a vampire with that ability, not even masters a thousand years old. They could surround a person's innermost self and exert pressure, projecting emotions until they overwhelmed the human mind and heart. They could siphon off fear or lust to supplement their more physical diet. They could read body language and scent until they almost seemed telepathic. But they couldn't get in without a link. They couldn't create anything remotely that _real_.

He wondered if Saito or Eames had heard of anything like Ariadne's gift.

Wait.

Eames.

Ariadne knew he was angry at Eames, and that Eames was coming to St. Louis. She was clever and quick enough to survive under both Nikolaos and Jean-Claude, which meant she knew trouble when she saw it. When she saw Eames with Fisher and Lebrun -- and Arthur had to assume she'd see him, since all his plans went awry around those two -- she would know something was up.

Shit.

He needed to get her on their side or get her out of the way. Fast.

Arthur slipped out of the bathroom long enough to grab his phone -- "Still just me, don't worry," he murmured in response to Dom's wordless, curious noise -- and kick off his shoes. Then he entered Eames's number manually, since neither of them could afford to have each other in their contact lists, and texted him one word: _spanner_.

The "call me" was understood.

Anything else would have to wait for morning.

\---------------------------------------------

**End of Chapter One**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) As you can see, I have taken some cosmetic liberties with the names of various _Inception_ characters. This is mostly to make them fit better into their new origin stories. Hopefully it is still clear who everyone actually is.
> 
> 2) Sally Cunningham is 90% an original character. Her personality and backstory are entirely my invention... but her appearance is the blonde woman Eames forges on the second level. I wanted more female characters, and I couldn't resist. :-)

Sally Cunningham leaned across the plastic table at the twenty-four hour McDonalds, giving Eames a calculated glimpse down her low-cut green blouse, and whispered, "Your coat is vibrating."

Eames grinned at her, sliding a hand into his pocket to pull out the little machine. "Thank you, I had somehow failed to notice, what with all the excitement."

Sally raised one penciled eyebrow and sat back upright. "Oh? Do tell."

"You know how it is: any time I see your glorious face and hear your entrancing voice, I altogether lose track of reality." He unlocked the phone and opened the message. Unknown number, one word: _spanner_.

Arthur was in trouble.

"Bloody telemarketers," Eames grumbled, deleting the message. "I don't want any upgrades."

Sally dipped a French fry -- really, what Americans did to innocent potatoes didn't deserve to be called chips -- into her little paper cup of ketchup and bit it in half. "You're a funny sort of technophobe," she said. "If it blows things up, you can't get enough, but if it's for talking to people? Heavens, no! Back, foul demons of silicon and wire!" She stuffed the remains of the fry into her mouth and held up her two index fingers in the shape of a rough cross.

"Computers take all the interest out of human relationships," Eames said, stealing one of Sally's fries. "It's no fun if you can't at least hear a person's actual voice, let alone see and smell their body. For example, if I couldn't see your face and the set of your shoulders right now, how would I know you're wondering whether you can get away with slapping me as a joke?"

"You wouldn't," Sally conceded, "but that's mostly because I wouldn't be wondering it, since you wouldn't be sitting in front of me stealing my fries. I already bought your dinner. Have a heart and leave mine to me."

"Since you ask so nicely," Eames said. "Listen, I'm going to go wash up while you finish eating -- maybe walk around the lot, get a bit of fresh air before we go back underground. Meet me in the car in fifteen?"

"Yeah, sure," Sally said. "Give me the keys."

Eames tossed her the keys to their rental car, slung his battered brown coat over his shoulder, and headed toward the washroom. He stole one more fry as he went, easily dodging Sally's halfhearted punch.

Two minutes later, he was outside at the edge of the McDonalds parking lot, where it bordered a strip of scrubland at the edge of a back road. There were no cars parked here in the arse end of the night, he couldn't hear anything beyond the normal rustling of night breezes and tiny prey animals, and he was fairly sure neither Lebrun nor Fisher cared enough to send a spy to watch him and Sally eat artery clogging grease. This was as close to privacy as he was going to get.

Eames opened his phone and started to dial Arthur's number.

Then he paused. Just because he was in a position to talk now didn't mean Arthur was. He probably ought to show a bit of consideration and text instead, setting a time for Arthur to call.

Eames scowled down at the little silvery phone and tapped out a single word reply: _noon_. That would take care of the vampires, and if Sally or Robert happened to be awake, it should be easy enough to redirect their attention to each other, letting him slip away clean. Lebrun's other hangers-on might be trickier to ditch -- for one thing, Eames didn't know who half of them were -- but he wasn't a thief and con-man for nothing.

He wasn't the one who kept tripping over new complications.

"When this is all over, Arthur, I am going to point and laugh for days," Eames murmured as he deleted the record of his text and flipped the phone shut. "I've been dancing with Fisher for almost a year. You only have Dom Cobb to wrangle, and you can't even manage that half the time."

If he was being honest, he might admit that it was harder to maneuver a person you were trying not to hurt or lie to, but Eames tried not to let honesty get in the way of his own amusement.

He kicked idly at the loose gravel where the asphalt met the grass, then turned and headed back to the oasis of light around the McDonalds.

Sally was waiting in the driver's seat of their rented car, something that looked like the mutant offspring of a sedan and a sport utility vehicle, painted a horrible burnt orange.

"You know, about the only thing that could possibly make this vehicle less awful would be lime green racing stripes," Eames remarked as he buckled himself into the shotgun seat. "That would be so over the top it might come back around to tasteful."

Sally favored him with her coldest unimpressed stare. "This is why I pick our clothes," she said. "You do all right with style and fit, but you have no color sense whatsoever."

"Too true, love. You've hit upon my deepest secret. I'm colorblind, completely and utterly. It's shocking how well I've overcome that handicap in my work as a painter," Eames said lightly.

This time, he couldn't evade Sally's punch. He caught her hand as it withdrew, though, and squeezed her fingers gently to make a point. Werefoxes didn't have enough numbers to bother with elaborate dominance hierarchies like wolves or some of the great cats, but if push came to shove, Eames outranked Sally. He was stronger, and he'd been a lycanthrope much longer. It was best that they both remembered that.

"Dick," Sally grumbled, shaking her fingers out with excessive melodrama. "We've looked in on Lebrun's businesses, we've eaten, we've done laundry. Anything else on the list tonight?"

On _his_ list, certainly, which was his own stupid fault for getting over his head in New York five years ago and consequently owing Arthur his life. On Sally's list? No, she was well out of his mess. He wished she were out of Fisher's reach, too, but if wishes were horses and all that.

"Not to speak of," Eames said, tilting his seat back and stretching his legs and toes. "Tell you what, though -- I seem to recall passing a Dunkin' Donuts on our way to dinner. Let's grab something sweet for Robert on our way back, yeah? I'll foot the bill; you'll get the credit."

Sally's wide-set eyes softened and her smile was small and warm. "He could use some cheering up," she agreed. "You're the best sometimes, you know?"

"Go on, flatter me more," Eames said, and let Sally swat the air in his general direction.

They bickered amiably as they drove around unfamiliar streets in search of the elusive Dunkin' Donuts, as they debated whether to buy extra donuts to save for breakfast, and as they headed back through Bayview to Hunters Point.

Working through his human servant and several shell companies, Peter Lebrun had surreptitiously purchased the old naval shipyard and much of the surrounding area over the past decades. Once Addison v. Clark had made the undead legal, Lebrun had openly declared the neighborhood to be the vampire district of San Francisco, and poured money into decontaminating and revitalizing the area. Hunters Point wasn't as lurid or famous as the vampire districts of New York, St. Louis, Savannah, or New Orleans, but it was a close fifth, easily beating out Chicago (whose Master of the City preferred to fly under the radar). The small sister district across the bay in Oakland was also under Lebrun's thumb these days, wrested out of Mallorie Deschain's hands with fatal finality.

Lebrun kept his daytime resting place in the basement of a large brick building that seemed to be a perfectly ordinary four storey apartment complex. In point of fact, the majority of the outward facing "rooms" were nothing but closet-sized decoys. The real rooms were in the windowless interior, and filled with vampires beholden to Lebrun. The higher they were in his favor, the lower their rooms.

Fisher, of course, was staying in the cellar itself. He had been Lebrun's lord and commander when they were both human knights fighting for William the Conqueror, and had made Lebrun shortly after he'd been turned by a vengeful Saxon vampire. Neither had ever terminated that master-to-vassal relationship, despite the Pacific ocean that now sundered their respective territories. There had never been any question that Fisher would choose Lebrun to stand as his second when challenging Saito for a Council seat.

As part of Fisher's entourage, Eames and Sally had also been offered beds in one of the luxurious underground rooms. Sally had accepted, the better to be close to Robert Fitzmorris, Lebrun's human servant. Eames had declined. Both Fisher and Lebrun were old and strong enough to rise before sunset, and he preferred a bit of distance so they didn't barge in on him unexpectedly. He'd commandeered one of the closet rooms on the top floor, laid out a bedroll, and pried open the window for a bit of air that didn't smell of blood and graveyards.

Lebrun hadn't been amused at the minor property damage or the implied insult to his hospitality, but Eames had Fisher's favor right now -- the bloodthirsty old bastard thought Eames was clever, and was secure in his ability to call Eames's beast to heel. There was nothing Lebrun could do but grin and bear it, which he had done with admirable grace.

With that comforting thought in mind, Eames nodded to the wererat manning the checkpoint between the parking lot and Lebrun's lair and said, "Excellent job, man. Glad you've learned to recognize me and the lovely lady and aren't getting in our way anymore. Carry on then, old chap," in his most absurdly posh accent, so plummy and overdone it made his teeth ache.

Beside him, Sally rolled her eyes and pulled a plain donut -- with a handle; who thought of things like that? -- from the carryout bag. "Sorry about him. Have a donut," she said, and shoved it into the hapless wererat's hand.

"You're incorrigible," she muttered to Eames as he unlocked the door, and the inner door, and the door to the basement stairwell. "He was a rat, right?"

"So he was. You're getting better at recognizing trace scents," Eames said, waving her past to walk in front of him. "You go bestow sugary delight upon our favorite human servant, I'll give the boss the rundown on Lebrun's people and property, and we'll reconvene in the common room around... half past one in the afternoon, shall we say?" Which would give him plenty of time to talk to Arthur and perhaps even start working on contingency plans, should they prove necessary.

"Sounds like a plan," Sally agreed.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. She turned right, heading through the maze of twisty corridors, all alike, toward Lebrun's suite where Robert would be waiting in case his master needed his presence. Eames turned left, tucking away all thoughts of Arthur and his plans, until all that remained was Fisher's newest lieutenant and occasional hors d'oeuvre.

He had a report to make.

\---------------------------------------------

Arthur woke at eight -- earlier than he'd have preferred but later than he'd expected. He had trouble sleeping much past sunrise, which made the semi-nocturnal schedule his jobs and lifestyle demanded rather awkward. He compensated with afternoon naps when possible. Lately Dom had insisted on doing most of the driving so Arthur could at least sleep in their ever-changing array of rental cars as they moved from hunt to hunt across the country.

He showered, shaved, brushed his teeth, and dressed as quietly as he could in khaki slacks and a light cream shirt with a brown sweater vest. No tie today; he wanted to project friendly approachability more than strict professionalism. Dom slept through it all, undisturbed by the familiar routine. Arthur left a note on the night table between the beds, and another taped to the bathroom mirror, just in case. Then he took one of the key cards and headed toward the main office in search of the motel's promised continental breakfast.

It turned out to be slightly better than he'd feared, and he ate a hardboiled egg, a plain bagel, and a cup of mixed fruit while working through a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch someone had abandoned on a nearby tiny table. The coffee was too weak, as motel coffee usually was, but it pulled him into focus, which was the main thing.

He returned to the room and picked his phone off his suitcase. Eames had mimicked his brevity in the return text, sending only one word: _noon_. "And which of us calls whom?" Arthur wondered, slightly irritated at the ambiguity. That was Eames all over, though. He was brilliant, but if you didn't pin him down on details, half the time he wouldn't bother to think about them at all. He liked to wing things.

Arthur could wing things just fine in a pinch, but he preferred not to need to, or at least to have some general notion of where to start improvising so he wouldn't be caught flat-footed.

He decided to give Eames the chance to call first.

That settled, he changed the notes on the table and mirror, grabbed his coat, his gun, his laptop, and the car keys, and pulled out onto I-270. He'd spent enough time on the newspaper that it was already nine o'clock. Businesses would be opening and he could start getting the lay of the land in preparation for the coming week.

His first stop was Animators, Inc., where Anita Blake worked.

The business was housed in an ordinary looking office building -- a standard block of steel, concrete, and grayish glass ringed by a reef of cement sidewalks and decorative bushes in a lake of asphalt parking lot. The interior was arranged around a central atrium, three stories of empty air nominally filled by two palm trees and a modern art fountain on the ground floor. Arthur checked the office listings in the entryway, then took the hallway on the right of the atrium. There were three businesses down this wing: a psychologist to his right, a plastic surgeon at the end of the short hallway, and Animators, Inc. to his left.

Arthur opened the door and stopped, blinking at the sudden impression that he'd wandered into a home decorating show gone wrong. The reception room was wallpapered in pale green with a tiny, overly busy pattern in brown and darker green. The carpet was a slightly less pale shade of green, almost exactly the color of pistachio ice cream, and thick enough that it caught the bottom edge of the door and made opening it more than eighty degrees nearly impossible. Plants in off-white ceramic pots, their glaze artificially cracked, festooned every open corner and flat surface, leaving almost no room for chairs or the spread of old magazines every waiting room seemed to collect.

Three doors opened in the back wall of the reception room. Between them, a middle-aged woman with short yellow hair sat behind a institutional-style walled desk, busily typing at a computer. She hadn't noticed Arthur's entrance.

He forced the outer door shut and cleared his throat.

The receptionist looked up and smiled, professionally cheerful. Wrinkles bracketed her mouth, and Arthur revised her age upward -- closer to sixty than forty. "Hello. Are you Mr. Ainsley to meet with Mr. Kirkland? He's in the leftmost office."

Arthur smiled and shook his head. "No, I'm not here to see Mr. Kirkland. I was actually hoping I could speak with your manager, Mr. Vaughn. I'm an animator myself -- I worked for the Resurrection Company until I left California a few years ago-- and I'm curious about his business model. Arthur Levine." He offered his hand over the desk.

"Mary Roth," the receptionist said, shaking his hand briefly and firmly. "Mr. Vaughn is currently in the middle of a phone call, but he should be done within fifteen minutes if you wouldn't mind waiting."

"Not at all," Arthur said, lounging sideways against the desk, his left arm lying on top of the sheltering wall. "I'd love to get your perspective on Animators, Inc. I'm sure you know all the little details Mr. Vaughn, as the man in charge, might not think to tell me."

"Oh, I couldn't go telling any tales, Mr. Levine," Ms. Roth said, but the smile lurking around the corners of her mouth and eyes said she was willing to play along with Arthur's game. He wasn't that charming, so either he reminded her of someone or Bert Vaughn did not hold the full respect and trust of his employees.

"I wouldn't ask you to break confidence, Ms. Roth," Arthur said. "But the company website is aimed at clients, not at other animators, so you can see how I'd be curious. On that note, can you tell me how many animators are currently members of the firm?"

"We have six animators on staff," Ms. Roth said. "Manny Rodriguez, Jamison Clark, Charles Montgomery, John Burke, Larry Kirkland, and Anita Blake, whom I'm sure you've heard of. And please, call me Mary." She smiled at him, in a warm and vaguely indulgent manner that reminded him of his mother.

Arthur returned the smile. "I'd be honored. Please, call me Arthur. Do I take it from your phrasing that the animators are employees rather than partners?"

Mary Roth shrugged. "Technically, yes. The company was Mr. Vaughn's idea, so he's the employer of record. In practice, each animator is more of a semi-independent contractor than a salaried employee. Each raising brings in an individual gross income, of which forty percent goes to the company for overhead, publicity, and the salaries of the non-animators. The rest, less taxes and health insurance fees, remains with the animator in question. Mr. Vaughn also takes a ten percent cut of the gross income for any consulting jobs he arranges, but those aren't figured into the income pool for overhead and so on, so the animator's take-home percentage is higher." She looked quizzically at Arthur. "Is the Resurrection Company's business model very different?"

"Yes and no," Arthur said. "For one thing, the Resurrection Company isn't a single, centralized business. It was founded in San Diego, but it runs on a franchise model. Any animator who passes a basic competency test can open a franchise anywhere in California. In return for following the company's fee schedule and restrictions, and sending twenty percent of gross income to the central office, they get to use the company's name and reputation. You lose some freedom, but it reassures potential clients that you're not a fraud."

"Did you operate a franchise?" Mary asked, leaning forward slightly.

Arthur laughed. "No, nothing that regular. What I did was take some raisings on a freelance contract basis. There's a franchise in San Francisco -- the Flores sisters, maybe you've heard of them? -- but sometimes they had more requests than they could handle. I lived in Oakland at the time, so I tended to handle the raisings on the inland side of the bay. I had to get certified by the company headquarters, of course, but it was a nice side job."

He reciprocated Mary's lean, bending down toward her, and said in a stage whisper, "The certification process was a complete joke. All they did was send a secretary -- not nearly as pretty as you -- to verify that I could safely raise two zombies in one night and wasn't using human sacrifice. Company regulations won't allow more than three raisings in one night. If anyone did four, they'd have to pay overtime."

Mary giggled. "Oh, I'll have to tell that to Anita. She threatens to leave the business every couple months -- I think the Resurrection Company has a standing offer to sponsor her move to California, if she wants -- but she's never said anything about them offering to pay overtime for raisings. She'll take that and trample all over Bert."

Now they were getting somewhere.

"I take it Mr. Vaughn doesn't believe in overtime?" Arthur said.

Mary shook her head. "Not in a month of Sundays. He schedules as many raisings as each animator is physically and mystically capable of per night. It's nice for their budgets, but it puts a strain on their personal lives, especially the ones who have side jobs as well. Jamison has a side line selling coffins and tombstones for two of the local cemeteries, and he's always complaining he doesn't need to push for three zombie raisings a night when two would support him just fine. As for John, Larry, and Anita... well, they're licensed vampire executioners, you know, and Anita also does police consulting as well for RPIT -- the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team -- and I don't think I've ever seen any of them get enough sleep. Particularly Anita, the poor dear. I don't think she'd have half the trouble she does if she simply had more time to slow down and think."

"High stress lifestyles can lead people into strange places before you quite realize what's happening," Arthur agreed. "I actually work more as a bounty hunter than an animator, and I can tell you with complete sincerity that my life now isn't anything like the life I envisioned when I was eighteen."

Mary made a wordless inquiring noise.

"Mostly I thought I'd be married and settled down by now," Arthur clarified. "I thought for a while I'd found what I was looking for -- that was why I stayed in Oakland for a few years -- but it fell through. I've been at loose ends since then, but I'm thinking it's time to try for something solid again."

"You're one up on Anita, in that case," Mary told him. "I don't think the poor woman has ever had anything solid in her life. First she was dating one man, then he died, then she's engaged to a second man, then she dumps him and starts dating a third, then she dumps him too, then she starts taking him back... And her third man is a vampire, of all things. Not that I'm prejudiced against vampires," she added hastily, "but she spent so long saying that vampires were monsters and she hated them, that it seems funny for her to take up with one, charming though Jean-Claude may be."

It was Arthur's turn to make a wordless noise of inquiry.

Mary obliged him and continued. "He's the Master of the City, you know. And Anita's fallen in with lycanthropes, too -- wereleopards, I think. Most of them are lovely people, but their lives seem so violent. I worry about her. She's always had a temper, and her lifestyle is making it worse. She pushes Bert harder these days and I've seen her hand move toward her gun when she's annoyed. She never used to do anything like that." She beckoned Arthur to lean down and whispered -- a real whisper, not a stage voice meant to be overheard: "You might know what she's going through, Mr. Levine. Do you think that sounds like she's in trouble?"

Before Arthur could formulate an answer, a man opened the left hand office door and cleared his throat.

Arthur straightened and turned so he was facing the open door head-on, instead of over his left shoulder.

The man in the doorway was short, under five and a half feet tall, with milk pale skin and vivid carrot-colored hair. He was also very young, maybe not even old enough to legally drink alcohol. His eyes were older than that, of course -- anyone who worked with the dead got comfortable with things most normal people could and did avoid thinking about -- but he still projected an air of youth and optimism. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, gray trousers, a gray suit jacket, and dirt-stained hiking boots. He had a gun under the jacket in a shoulder holster.

"Mr. Ainsley?" the man said, taking a half step forward.

"Mr. Ainsley seems to be running late," Mary said, smiling at the young man. "Larry, this is Arthur Levine from California. He used to do some work with the Resurrection Company, and he's interested in getting an employee's perspective on Animators, Inc." She turned back to Arthur and added, "This is Larry Kirkland, one of our staff animators, who also works as a vampire executioner. He's a very talented young man."

Mr. Kirkland blushed tomato red. "I'm nothing special, Mary," he protested.

"He is, you know," Mary assured Arthur with a mischievous smile. "He finished college while working for us nearly full-time, he has a lovely young woman who I'm sure would say yes if he ever popped the question, and he can even make Anita act polite."

"Quite a paragon," Arthur agreed, mock-seriously, then looked back over at Mr. Kirkland. "Since your client is late and your boss is apparently tied up on the phone, would you mind giving me the three-penny tour?"

"Well..." Mr. Kirkland said, looking toward the middle office door with a hesitant expression.

Just then, Mary's phone rang. She picked it up and said, nothing but professional courtesy and efficiency in her voice, "Hello, Animators, Inc., how may I help you?" After a few seconds, her forehead drew down in a slight frown. "I'm very sorry to hear that. What time would you like to reschedule?" She tucked the phone between her left shoulder and ear and clicked her mouse several times with her right hand, pulling up a spreadsheet. "I'm afraid Mr. Kirkland is already booked tomorrow evening. What about Monday morning?" Another click. "No, we don't keep office hours on Sundays; Monday is the soonest Mr. Kirkland has another open slot. Mmmhmm. Yes. Nine in the morning. Have a good day, Mr. Ainsley, and I hope your daughter gets well soon."

She hung up the phone and gave Mr. Kirkland an apologetic look. "Mr. Ainsley's daughter has an ear infection and he has to stay home and care for her. I've rescheduled your meeting for Monday morning. You're free until your first raising tonight."

Mr. Kirkland looked briefly annoyed. Arthur sympathized -- he might not be able to sleep in, even if he'd been up most of the night, but when he'd been raising zombies more regularly, all he'd ever wanted to do before noon was lounge around his own apartment (or around his guest room in Mal and Dom's house), not come in to an office and be told he needn't have bothered to force himself to be awake and presentable.

Then Mr. Kirkland's expression smoothed into a determined smile. "As long as I'm up and you're here," he said, "how would you like a tour of the city in general? I can show you the main cemeteries and the best places to buy herbs and sacrificial animals."

Arthur smiled back. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, Mr. Kirkland, I would greatly appreciate that."

"Call me Larry," Mr. Kirkland said, flushing again. "We might end up being colleagues, after all, and I'm not nearly old enough to be that formal anyway." He stepped out of the doorway and offered his hand to Arthur.

Larry Kirkland had a nice, firm grip, and his callus pattern said that the gun under his jacket wasn't just for show -- he practiced with it, though not as often as he handled his ritual knives.

So far as Arthur knew, most vampire executioners didn't get into a lot of danger since Addison v. Clark and the slew of laws that trailed in its wake. They simply carried out the living wills of people who wanted to make sure they didn't become undead, which meant hammering stakes into unmoving corpses under the supervision of the police or medical personnel. Only a few executioners actually tracked down and fought rogue vampires.

Anita Blake was one of the hunters. Apparently she'd trained Larry Kirkland to follow her path to some degree.

Arthur was getting very curious about Ms. Blake.

"Call me Arthur, then," he told Larry, and gestured toward the outer door of the reception room. "It was lovely to meet you, Mary. With luck, we'll see each other again soon."

She waved as he and Larry stepped into the hallway.

Larry's smile dropped away as soon as Arthur pulled the door shut behind them.

"All right. Why are you really here?" he said.

Arthur let surprise show on his face. "What do you mean? I don't know how long I'll be in St. Louis, but you know we need to call the dead now and then to prevent accidental raisings. I thought I might as well try to earn a bit of money and make some contacts in the process."

"That may be true," Larry said, "but I heard you talking to Mary. She didn't catch your game, but I'm not stupid. You were fishing for dirt on Anita. Who are you working for and what do you want with her?"

He raised one arm to point at Arthur, causing his jacket to swing open and flash his gun.

Arthur regretted leaving his Glock in the rental car. He hadn't thought he'd need it for visiting a legitimate business, and since he didn't have a Missouri concealed carry permit, he'd figured it was better to appear harmless than dangerous.

"I don't have any negative intentions toward Ms. Blake," he said, holding his hands up to show he was unarmed. He kept his voice calm and even. "I am, however, in the middle of arranging a meeting with Jean-Claude to sell information, and I hope to stay in St. Louis for a week or two after that. Ms. Blake is associated with Jean-Claude -- she's known to have been on dates with him, and rumor claims that she and the local Ulfric have formed a triumvirate with him -- so it seemed politic to know more about her than the newspapers tend to print. That's all."

Larry frowned. "What could you possibly know that a master vampire would be interested in buying?"

Arthur smiled. "What are _you_ willing to pay for the information? Fair warning: it's almost certainly useless to you, unless you have a habit of getting tangled in high level vampire politics."

"Not unless I'm with Anita at the wrong time," Larry Kirkland said, and laughed. Tension drained from the hallway like shadows fleeing from the sun, and Arthur realized both he and Larry had been drawing up their power subconsciously, as if calling the dead would do them any good in a fight against each other.

"Truce?" Arthur offered.

"Yeah, all right. I don't think you're lying, and if you are, Anita can take care of herself," Larry said. He favored Arthur with a slightly lopsided grin. "The things you need to remember about her are that she hates being condescended to or underestimated, she'll do anything to protect people she thinks of as hers, she has a hell of a temper, and something about her is like catnip for preternatural men. So if you piss her off, you piss off a bunch of vampires and lycanthropes, too."

"I'll be sure to mind my manners," Arthur said dryly.

"Yeah, good luck with that," said Larry. He reached up to clap Arthur on the shoulder, then started walking down the hallway toward the atrium.

Arthur watched him go, bemused.

After a moment, Larry turned and said, "Do you still want that tour of the city or not? I could just as easily go home and watch all the football games I've been recording since my last day off."

Arthur laughed. "I'll drive," he said, and followed Larry out into the midmorning sun.

\---------------------------------------------

Eames woke to a tinny imitation of birdsong shrilling at him from across his room. Bloody cell phones were at least useful at keeping time, but he hated the thin, compressed nature of most of their sound files. Sally claimed the speaker quality was better on newer phones, but he was not going to get a new phone just so it would make a slightly less annoying alarm clock.

Besides, annoyance was half the point. If the tune was soothing, he wouldn't feel any urge to get up and turn it off, now would he?

He stretched, phone clutched in one hand, and kicked his bedroll into a rough semblance of order. Eleven o'clock, time for all good double agents to clean up, scout the lay of the land, and prepare to exchange perfidious secrets over the metaphorical wires.

Eames slung a black t-shirt and a pair of old jeans over his arm, grabbed his toiletry kit, and headed down to the cellar to make use of a proper bathroom and shower.

None of the vampires were up at this time of day -- Fisher and Lebrun were old enough to wake in mid-afternoon, which gave Eames somewhere between two and five hours, depending on factors he'd never been able to force into any pattern. One of Lebrun's wererats was guarding the top of the cellar staircase; she was in half-human form, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants with a hole cut for her long, naked tail. She ducked her head and opened the door for Eames.

"Thanks, Corazon," he said as he brushed past her. He grinned to himself when she went stiff in surprise. He'd been a right dick to most of the rats the past two days, so for him to know this one's name, and use it politely, would leave them all wondering if he liked her, if he had a hidden agenda, or if Fisher was using him to send a message through her to Lebrun. Confusion was a beautiful thing.

And Corazon had been nice to Sally the night they arrived from Sydney. One good turn deserved another.

The cellar was deliberately confusing in its layout -- one last line of defense, Eames supposed -- but he found a bathroom easily enough by tracing water pipes on the ceiling. Twenty minutes later, he was showered, shaved, and mostly dressed. Socks and shoes would have to wait until he got back upstairs, but Lebrun kept his lair nicely carpeted so going barefoot was no hardship. Besides, lycanthropes tended to run a bit hotter than normal humans.

Eames was wandering in search of a staircase, trying to make the nest of short, right-angled hallways and oddly-sized rooms match up against the tentative mental map he'd been constructing the past two days. He wasn't having a lot of success. He could apply a map to unfamiliar territory, but he'd never quite mastered the process in reverse.

The whole cellar smelled of blood and death, no matter how much perfume or air freshener the residents poured into the air. Eames stopped outside one of the many identical white doors and sneezed, wondering who had a hard-on for orange and bergamot, and no sense of proportion in its use.

The door opened, revealing a shirtless man with tousled brown hair, pale skin, and huge blue eyes.

"Eames?" Robert Fitzmorris said, leaning forward into the gap between the partially open door and its frame. "It's only..." He glanced back over his shoulder. "It's eleven thirty. Sally said you didn't need her until after one. Is anything wrong?" His entire body expressed nothing but earnest concern.

In the room behind him, Sally mumbled something incoherent.

Eames grinned. "No problems at all. I simply wanted a bit of fresh air and sunshine, maybe a jog down by the docks. Only I've misplaced the staircase, you see."

Robert's expression cleared and firmed. "Oh, I see. Down the hall to your left, turn right, then another right, then a left, and it should be through the door on your right." He paused, studied Eames's face -- which must have been a bloody picture -- and laughed. "I'll walk you there."

Robert disappeared into his room for a minute and returned, still shirtless and barefoot, with a key in his hand. "No sense leaving Sally unprotected," he said in response to Eames's quizzical glance. "Not that I expect anything to happen, but better safe than sorry." A brief shadow seemed to flit behind his eyes, but was quickly buried, leaving them clear again. He locked the door.

"A man after my own heart," Eames said, following Robert down the hall. "So. You and Sally?"

"Me and Sally," Robert agreed with a small, disbelieving smile. "At least until we leave St. Louis. Do you suppose, if my father wins, he might let her..." He trailed off, shook his head. "No, I shouldn't ask. You're his people. I shouldn't presume. And she'd grow disillusioned with me in any case. People always do." His scent and posture said defeat, pain, submission, stifled love... and under that, so faint and suppressed that most people would never catch it -- so faint that Robert himself might not realize it was there at all -- anger.

So Robert wasn't a hundred percent reconciled to his life, was he? Now that could be useful. Especially if that anger could be transferred to Lebrun as well.

"Sally knows her own mind," Eames said in an encouraging tone. "Fisher doesn't own us. Besides, if he wins, he'll have bigger things on his mind than one little fox, and if he loses, I doubt Saito will care much about what becomes of us. Either way, don't write yourself out of the race before it's half started. Maybe you should ask Lebrun to put in a word."

A ghost of Robert's smile reappeared. "He might let Sally come work for Uncle Peter, but not if he knew I was the one behind the request. My father won't give me anything unless I show I'm strong enough to take it, and how can I take anything from him? He could cut me in half without even trying, and I could never hurt him anyway."

He stopped in front of another identical white door. "Here are the stairs. Tell Corazon to get some bagels for me and Sally before you head out."

"Will do," Eames said, and slipped through the door.

He'd learned more in two days around Lebrun's people than he'd learned in a year with Fisher alone. That wasn't surprising, really -- the old bastard held his cards close to his chest, no matter how much he claimed to trust anyone -- but even Fisher was more revealing in the company of his long-time lieutenant and his half-estranged son. Family did have a way of bringing out skeletons.

It was just as well Arthur was calling him, Eames reflected. They had a lot to discuss, and once they were in St. Louis, they might not get a chance to talk before everything came to a head.

\---------------------------------------------

Arthur dropped Larry Kirkland off back at the office building at a quarter to noon, with the excuse that he needed to get back to his motel and unstrand his friend -- which was true, but not the main point.

"Thanks for the tour," he said, leaning out the open window of the rental car.

"No problem," Larry said, one hand on the handle of his own car door. "Hey. You seem to know your stuff, and what Bert doesn't know won't hurt him. Would you be interested in tagging along on some of my raisings while you're in town?"

Arthur grinned. "I'd love to. I don't know which nights I'll be free, but give me your number and we can see if anything works out." He entered Larry's number into his phone, and they parted ways.

Dom was awake when Arthur returned to the Motel 6, sitting cross-legged on his bed in his boxers and watching CNN with a bored expression. "Your text woke me up," he said, "but the motel wasn't serving food anymore. You owe me breakfast."

Arthur held up a Wendy's takeout bag. "It's your own fault for not setting an alarm, but I'm not heartless. I got you a spicy chicken sandwich and fries. Please tell me you at least took a shower before you turned on the talking heads."

"A chicken sandwich is not breakfast," Dom pointed out, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He muted the television and tossed the remote onto his pillow.

"It's lunchtime," Arthur said, equally dryly. "Speaking of the time, Eames is supposed to call at noon -- or I'm supposed to call him. He didn't specify." He sat on his own bed, facing Dom across the narrow gap, and set his phone and the takeout bag by his side.

"Sounds like him," Dom said with a wry smile. "But why contact us now? Fisher and Lebrun must be more paranoid than usual, knowing what's about to happen."

Arthur grimaced. "That would be my fault. At least partially. It turns out that Ariadne, our escort from last night, can dreamwalk into anyone's mind, not just people to whom she has a mystical tie. Or perhaps she can create a weak tie to anyone, and that's what she was doing when she swamped us with her aura before she left. She was spying on our dreams. Something went sideways and she and I ended up in a shared lucid dream, but that's not the point. The point is that she knows that I know Eames. She may even know that I've worked with him. When he turns up as part of Fisher's entourage, she's going to smell something rotten. We need to plan how to co-opt or neutralize her, or come up with a very convincing story."

Dom raked his hands through his hair and squinted in thought. "Yeah. That's not good. That's really not good."

"Tell me something I don't know," Arthur snapped.

Dom kicked Arthur's shin with his bare foot. "You've known this since last night. I only just found out. Give me a minute to catch up."

Arthur sighed. "Fair point. Sorry. In any case, I was thinking that killing Ariadne would be far more trouble than it's worth -- the last thing we need is to rile Jean-Claude and his people when things are already going to be so delicately balanced. What we need is blackmail. Fortunately, I believe we have some. It seems she's never told anyone about her dreamwalking talent. She also seems to spend a lot of time and effort staying out of conflicts, so if we use her secret as leverage to gain a private conversation, I suspect we can convince her that our plans will have no effect on Jean-Claude and it's in her best interest not to get involved at all."

Dom frowned. "That's good as far as it goes, but why was she spying on our dreams if she wasn't going to report them?"

Arthur spread his hands. "Curiosity, maybe? Gathering information so she can better keep herself safe?" Should he tell Dom the rest? It might be relevant, but it felt odd to say, especially after Mal... He clasped his hands and looked downward. "She said she found me interesting -- attractive, actually. I don't know if that was the truth, particularly since she killed me to break out of the lucid dream."

Silence. Arthur glanced up and couldn't read the expression on Dom's face.

"You know, it's ten past noon and Eames hasn't called. Why don't I call him and we can continue this conversation on speakerphone?" Arthur said, grabbing his phone from the bed and entering Eames's number.

It only rang once before Eames picked up. "Arthur, darling, you're late! How unlike you not to be punctual." His voice was loud and bright, filled with a sort of hard cheer.

"I was giving you a chance to call, if that was your intent," Arthur said, hearing his own voice go dry and slightly condescending. Eames had a knack for pulling that reaction from him. "Hold on a moment while I put you on speaker."

"Cobb's with you?" Eames guessed. "Hello, Dominick. Are you taking care of yourself and my favorite zombie prince?"

Arthur glared at the phone. Dom's mouth twisted in a reluctant grin. "I think you have the caretaking relationship backwards," he said. "Besides, wouldn't Arthur be a zombie king?"

Eames chuckled. The sound was both magnified and oddly limited by the speakerphone acoustics, as if he were talking inside a large metal box with odd, transient echoes. "Maybe so. Now. What's your spanner in the works, and what do you expect me to do about it?"

Arthur explained again about Ariadne and her dreamwalking. This time he related all the details of their shared, lucid dream, plus whatever fragments he recalled of the normal dreams he'd had prior to realizing he had a mental intruder. Dom ate his chicken sandwich and made occasional thoughtful noises rather than actively participate. Eames stopped Arthur several times to ask about Ariadne's body language and tone of voice. Arthur couldn't always answer -- "and I'm not certain how useful any of this will be, since it was a dream and clearly normal rules didn't all apply," he added -- but he did his best. Eames was brilliant with people, but he couldn't work if he didn't have raw information.

When he was finished describing the dream, Arthur moved on to his impressions of Ariadne in waking life. Dom hastily finished his sandwich and chimed in to clarify a few points: "She may be at least sixty years old and a master, but she projects a persona that feels younger and closer to human than even the youngest vampires I've known. New vampires tend to revel in their new strength and powers, and they flash fang or miscalculate their strength even when trying to act human. She doesn't."

Eames hummed thoughtfully. "From what you're saying, it sounds like she was turned involuntarily -- most likely she saw something she shouldn't have, and the vampire in question decided to keep her rather than kill her. The trouble is that, Mal aside, most unwilling vampires don't last long enough to become masters. They can't accept their new instincts. They keep thinking like prey instead of predators, and that does them in. But this Ariadne is not only a master vampire, she's a master skilled enough to keep her power hidden from not one but two Masters of the City. She's running a long con, and she's good."

Arthur frowned. "I don't think it's entirely a con, though. She's comfortable with her power -- I'll grant you that -- but I'd swear her distaste for politics and trouble is genuine."

"She certainly didn't seem interested in seduction," Dom added, "which makes me wonder why Jean-Claude has her working in a strip club."

Because she was beautiful and small and delicate, which would make people want to protect and save her. And her indifference and subtle discomfort would excite people who wanted to possess and break her. Arthur kept those thoughts to himself, though, and simply said, "Punishment, perhaps? Or maybe her business skills outweigh her lack of interest."

"Could be both," Eames agreed. "Jean-Claude struck me as a very two birds, one stone sort of fellow, the one time I was passing through St. Louis and had the misfortune to meet Nikolaos and her court. But returning to your Ariadne. Why do you suppose she keeps her power hidden? If people knew she could break into their dreams, that would give her a lot of leverage -- nobody would ever know if their secrets were safe."

"Yes, and unless she agreed to use her talent only at her master's direction, she'd be killed within a week," Arthur said. "Spies don't prosper once they're revealed."

"So she doesn't want to be hunted and she doesn't want to be Jean-Claude's pet spy," Eames mused. "You know, I am beginning to think that if we could find a way to get her out from under Jean-Claude's thumb, she might throw in with us for that alone."

Arthur shook his head, forgetting that Eames couldn't see him. "There's no way. Vampires as old and powerful as Jean-Claude don't just let people go, and we don't have the strength to force his hand. What we need is a way to keep Ariadne quiet, or to explain away my connection to you so your presence with Fisher seems reasonable."

"Well, come to that, I've already had to do a bit of tap-dancing on that issue for Lebrun," Eames said. "His new second, a rather devious woman by the name of Meng Die, has a werewolf on her string who remembers the hunt you and I did up around Mt. Ranier. I said that I was repaying a favor, since you'd saved my life in New York, but that by the end of the hunt I was thoroughly sick of you, resented ever having owed you anything, and would be quite happy to see you dead. We can run with that and see if it stifles your Ariadne's suspicions."

Dom nodded in agreement. "That could work."

Arthur frowned. "I'm not sure. She specifically mentioned you in connection with St. Louis. She may not believe we've had no contact since Washington."

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it, Arthur," Eames said. "But all that aside, I am glad you contacted me. I've learned fascinating things about Fisher and Lebrun in the past two days -- seeing them together is enlightening. I want to run a few speculations by you and see if they change our plans."

Arthur settled back on his bed and prepared to listen.

\---------------------------------------------

Eames kicked idly at the dusty ground of the derelict Hunters Point shipyard. It was most likely laced with toxic waste, judging by what the barista at a rundown Bayview coffee shop had told him, but he wasn't especially worried. One benefit of turning furry at least once a month was an immune system that could beat nearly anything given so much as a whisper of a chance. Meanwhile, both the danger and the fact that Lebrun owned most of the property kept random passersby well away.

"To recap what you told me when I agreed to join your vendetta," he said, "Lebrun came to San Francisco in the seventies, promptly knocked off the previous Master of the City, and began establishing a sort of hegemony up and down the coast -- other Masters got to keep their territory, but only if they acknowledge him as a sort of regional overlord."

"Right," Dom said, speakerphone making him sound slightly more distant and tinny than usual. "Mal and I came to Oakland in '86, when Miles was transferred to Berkeley. Lebrun had been ruling Oakland directly, but the bay made that awkward so Mal persuaded him to let her hold the city in fief."

Eames nodded to himself. "And things went merrily along until Mal took Arthur as her human servant and you three became a triumvirate."

"Not a real triumvirate," Arthur clarified, old frustration lacing his voice. "Dom and I were both bound to her; we were never linked to each other at anything like the same strength. His marks were too old to stretch around mine."

"But close enough to make Lebrun nervous, which is when everything went to hell," Eames concluded, hurrying past what he knew were painful memories for the other two. "And you know about Fisher and Saito's proxy war, which is why Lebrun was in California in the first place. What you probably don't know, because they don't mention it outside their inner circle, is that Robert Fitzmorris, Lebrun's human servant, is Fisher's biological son."

Silence. Eames could practically hear Arthur's brain whirring as he processed new information.

Dom spoke first. "Does he have Vlad syndrome?"

Eames rolled his eyes. "I don't know how anyone would tell these days, what with the marks and all, but if he did it was a mild case. He was born about fifty years after Fisher turned Lebrun, to a thrall who either fled or was killed as soon as she wasn't needed for milk. Lebrun raised the boy and marked him once he was of age."

"That seems..." Arthur started, and trailed off.

"Weirdly incestuous?" Eames offered.

He could almost hear Arthur rolling his eyes, and the silence on the other end of the phone had an impatient air.

"They function well enough two by two," Eames continued, trying not to let his grin leak into his voice. "Nothing struck me as unusual when Lebrun and Robert each visited Sydney a couple times this past year, nor when Sally and I flew to San Francisco to deliver Fisher's orders. But get all three of them together and you could cut the tension with a knife."

Dom made one of his thinking noises, and Arthur said, "Details, Eames. Knowing they have weaknesses isn't much use unless you tell us what and where the stress points are."

Arthur and his fetish for specifics. Eames grinned wider and attempted to provide them. "Fisher ignores Robert most of the time, never acknowledges him unless Robert's directly addressed him first. He's quick enough to accept any results of Robert's work, though, even if he always finds something to criticize. That just makes Robert work twice as hard at supporting him, because he worships the old bastard and keeps hoping for his approval."

Arthur made a disgusted noise.

"I know, I know: dreadfully tragic and dreadfully common," Eames agreed. "But that pattern, while unhealthy, is at least functional to some degree. When you throw Lebrun into the mix, Fisher treats Robert like a slave and Robert just goes away inside his head, like he thinks he deserves it and can't even dream of fighting back."

That had been downright disconcerting for Eames to watch -- even worse for Sally, judging by the way her face had gone blank during the interminable formal welcoming ceremony when they'd arrived in San Francisco. It was just as well she'd not been invited to the strategy meeting the next night.

"Lebrun treats Robert like a favorite nephew and his heir apparent," he continued. "Robert runs his businesses so Lebrun can focus on politics. But when Fisher's around, Robert stops paying attention to Lebrun, and Lebrun keeps calling Robert to his side -- I'm not sure if it's to try reassuring him or to make a point to Fisher -- but either way, neither of them can get anything done." Which had made the strategy meeting run twice as long as it should have, even after Robert got over his daddy issues enough to participate at all.

"Fisher and Lebrun work hand in glove on any issue that has nothing to do with Robert, but the minute Robert's actions and loyalties come into the equation -- or the minute he walks into the room, for all I know -- they go cold and start playing dominance games using him as a pawn. And he won't stop them, won't side with either of them over the other. It's a right old mess and from what I can tell, they've been dancing the same steps for centuries. I will bet you a thousand pounds the reason Fisher and Lebrun are almost never together, despite their alliance, is Robert and nothing but Robert," Eames concluded.

He listened to the wind skipping over dry ground and faded grass while Dom and Arthur chewed over that information.

"I don't see how that changes our plan," Arthur said eventually. "So long as you get Lebrun's blood and a personal item to me the night before the challenge, I can work the ritual and give Dom a chance at killing him. You're in no more danger than you ever were -- perhaps less, if having Robert around makes Fisher irrational. He'll be less likely to pin blame on you."

It was Eames's turn to roll his eyes. "More likely, actually, since he lashes out when he's feeling paranoid. But that's not the point. The point is that I _think_ \-- only think, mind you; I'm not sure -- but I think we might be able to use Robert as a wedge to convince Fisher that Lebrun is plotting against him. Hey presto, Fisher will take care of your vengeance for you, you'll have neatly got vengeance on him too, since he'll kill his only friend for no reason, and Dom can go back to his children instead of dying in a kamikaze strike. Because there is no way Lebrun will go down without casualties, no matter what hoodoo you cast on him, Arthur."

"No," Dom said. Not even a bloody pause to consider, just flat refusal.

"This is blood vengeance, Eames," Arthur agreed, though he did at least have the courtesy to sound reluctant. "It's not enough for Lebrun to die. We promised Mal it would be our hands on the knife."

"She was dying in my head -- I felt every second of what Lebrun did to her -- and the only thing she could hold onto was us and that promise," Dom said, his voice low and thick with something halfway between rage and despair. "Philippa and James are safe under Saito's hand, and it's not like I'm their real father anyway. They're better off with Marie and Miles. Like Marie says, at least their grandparents are still human."

"Dom--" Arthur said, and then he must have turned off the speakerphone option because he said, quickly, "Give us a minute, Eames," and the line went silent.

Eames let his right hand drop to his side, still loosely cradling the phone, and stared out at the choppy water of San Francisco Bay. It was a beautiful autumn day. The sun was playing hopscotch with fluffy clouds, and the tattered sky was a heartbreaking shade of blue. The wind was brisk enough that when the sun vanished, Eames half-wished for a jacket, but not so brisk he didn't appreciate the scents it carried off the open water: brine and fish and the myriad blended smells of humanity and pollutants that whispered _city_ to anyone with a half-awake nose.

Fuck Dom's family anyway. So what if he was a weretiger and would have died two hundred years ago if Mal hadn't risen and marked him in turn? So what if he wasn't those two kids' biological father? He and Mal had loved and raised them since they were old enough to remember, and that was what counted.

Dom should be in Hawaii with his children, not looking to commit suicide-by-vampire, and especially not dragging Arthur down with him.

"Eames? Eames?" Arthur's voice sounded small and flat, coming from down near his thigh.

Eames raised the phone. "Yeah?"

"Dom's taking a shower. Tell me the rest of it," Arthur said. He still sounded flat, like he'd been punctured and all the life had run out of him, leaving only bad memories and the inborn core of darkness that let him call the dead.

Eames sighed. "Right. Fisher, Lebrun, and Robert fuck each other up, but they've been at this for nearly a thousand years. They'll paper it over in public. The next thing that might be important is Lebrun's new second. Her name is Meng Die, she's maybe two or three hundred years old, tiny, beautiful, and twisty as a corkscrew. She's plotting a coup. Lebrun's let her run with it until now because it helps him identify weak links in his organization, but he can't leave her unsupervised in San Francisco for two days, let alone two weeks."

Arthur scoffed. "So he'll kill her before you head to St. Louis. Why should I care?"

"Because Jean-Claude made her, and Lebrun, for one, would prefer not to piss him off before asking for the right to feed in his territory," Eames told him. "Lebrun's been arguing Fisher around to bringing her as a host gift, of all things."

"She's the one who knows the werewolf from the Washington hunt?" Arthur asked.

"Yes. Wolves are her animal to call." Like Mal had called tigers, like Lebrun called rats... and like Fisher called foxes. Which was the main reason Arthur had brought Eames into this mess in the first place.

"It doesn't matter. If she distracts Lebrun, it can only help us. If not, we're no worse than we always were," Arthur decided. "I'll most likely see Ariadne at least once before everyone descends on St. Louis, and I'll start laying a trail to corroborate your story about hating me. As for the rest, we'll stick with the plan. Don't worry about Dom; he's made his choices. Don't worry about me, either. The only person who has a chance of noticing and tracking the spell is Ms. Blake, and I'm working out how to approach her so she won't have any reason to bother."

Eames made a skeptical noise deep in his throat. "If you say so." Arthur was good at plans, but plans went to shit -- that was just how the world worked -- and Eames had heard stories about Anita Blake and the growing tangle at the heart of the St. Louis preternatural community. He still thought Arthur and Dom should have pressed Saito harder to get the challenge held somewhere else, but apparently the Queen of Nightmares had been fixed on the idea that even if Jean-Claude wouldn't take the Earthmover's empty seat, the challenge to replace their lost seventh should take place where he fell. Hence St. Louis.

"Is there anything else?" Arthur asked after a brief silence.

Eames considered. Fisher's lovely little dysfunctional family trio, Meng Die and her schemes, the chatty werewolf from Mt. Ranier... "Sally Cunningham, the other werefox at Fisher's beck and call, seems to be taking up with Robert. It may be an additional distraction or a source of tension between Robert and Fisher."

Arthur grunted. "Remind me to tell Dom that I clearly don't have the worst judgment about the right time to start mooning over people, no matter what he thinks."

What? Oh, right. "Your Ariadne, I presume?" Eames said dryly. "Maybe so, but I'll at least give Robert credit for having the sense to fall for someone nominally in his own camp."

"Fuck you, Eames," Arthur said without heat. "Listen, it's almost one o'clock and I need to get lunch and catch a nap. I'll see you Sunday at the formal announcement of the challenge."

"Until then," Eames said, and hung up.

He stared over the bay one last time, then turned and headed back to meet with Sally.

\---------------------------------------------

 **End of Chapter Two**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me so long! However, I feel it only honest to warn you that future chapters will likely take equally long, because I am a slow and highly distractible writer.
> 
> If you are willing to put up with fragmentary updates, you do have the option of reading individual scenes in draft version on my journal under the [-weregild](http://edenfalling.dreamwidth.org/tag/-weregild) tag; I post them as I write them. That's still not going to be very fast, though. Alas.

Ariadne had not been a master vampire nearly long enough to rise before sunset, let alone delay the dawn death. She snapped into awareness almost precisely as the last sliver of the sun vanished beneath the horizon, at a quarter to seven. Twilight still lingered outside but the weight of the sun no longer suppressed her.

She had an hour to dress, find Arthur and Cobb, and get them to the Circus of the Damned. Friday night traffic being what it was, she needed to get moving.

She'd showered before dawn, as well as made arrangements for Julian to manage Guilty Pleasures this night, so she simply needed to dress and deal with her hair. She'd chosen her outfit to appease Jean-Claude's need for a show without making herself look like either a hooker or a frilly china doll: a straight, narrow dress in gold satin with a pattern of dusky climbing roses curling up from the hem to end just over her left shoulder, with one bud acting like a false button closing the high collar. The sides were slit up to her knees to make walking possible, the sleeves ended at the edge of her shoulders, and the whole thing was accompanied by a waist-length rose-colored jacket to ward off any potential chill. Ariadne finished the outfit with a pair of complicated-looking gold sandals whose straps and low heels provided much better balance and traction than one might assume from dress shoes.

Jean-Claude would doubtless prefer her to show more skin, but Jean-Claude could go bite himself. She wore fetish gear at work because that was the required uniform. On her own time she preferred more fabric.

Once dressed, Ariadne closed her eyes and reached over the city, searching for the taste and feel of Arthur's aura. Ah. There he was, dark and enticing... and yes, Cobb was with him: a hot prickle of lycanthropic energy that danced around the cool wellspring of Arthur's power.

Ariadne held the connection in the back of her mind while she walked to the room she thought of as the great hall -- the one Nikolaos had used as a throne room, and which Jean-Claude seemed to repurpose every month. Tonight it was being set up as something halfway between an intimate dining room and an audience chamber. One table stood on a slightly raised dais, its presumably hasty construction hidden by layers of Persian rugs. It was set only along one side, so the people sitting there could look out and down over the rest of the room. Another table stood on the stone floor, a good foot lower, and was set so that its occupants would be facing upward toward the dais. A serving table stood along a side wall, and the great chamber was lit with a combination of candles in wall sconces and an electric chandelier hanging from the ceiling in a dazzle of brass and crystal.

Jean-Claude stood in the center of the room, dressed in a half-open brocade bathrobe and fitted black trousers as he supervised the final touches. "Ariadne," he said, waving her over without so much as a glance in her direction. "I wish a woman's opinion, and _ma petite_ has not yet arrived. Should we use the gold-washed cutlery and the bone china with fruit motif, or the pewter cutlery and the blue Wedgwood?"

Why he thought either Ariadne or Anita would care was beyond her, but Ariadne knew better than to say so. She looked up at the chandelier and down at the carpets. "Gold," she said. "The blue would clash."

"You are right," Jean-Claude said with a sigh. "A pity, though. I know Mallorie had a complete Wedgwood set, and seeing its match might provoke an unguarded moment in Dominick or Arthur." He told one of the human hangers-on to bring the chosen service, then turned to inspect Ariadne's dress with a critical eye. "Ah, good, you will match the theme!"

Ariadne nodded. "Arthur and Cobb are at their motel. If I leave now and traffic is good, we should return at a quarter to eight. Should I bring them through the Circus or use the back door?"

Jean-Claude shrugged, the bathrobe threatening to slip off his left shoulder. "As you wish. I will have people watching both entrances to remove Arthur's weapons, should he attempt to bring them inside. And now you must go and I must finish dressing before _ma petite_ and Richard arrive." He strode off toward the less public rooms, never thinking to look back and verify that Ariadne would obey.

He knew she would.

Ariadne was grateful for his protection. She had no interest in dominance fights or being responsible for other vampires, and she liked staying unnoticed and out of the riptide currents of politics and intrigue. Sometimes, though, his casual assumption that because she preferred calm she would accede to anything made her want to rip someone apart. But that would get her nowhere useful, so she let the impulse go and ventured out into the fading twilight.

Ariadne had no talent for crowd hypnosis -- her gifts worked on a more one-to-one basis -- so she avoided flight when there was a chance someone could easily look up and see her. She took a car instead. She had her driver's license now, so she was even legal.

She parked across the lot from the motel's main building and knocked on Arthur's door.

He opened it barely a second later, as if he had been waiting for her.

Arthur was dressed in another suit, this one an interesting shade of soft tan, paired with a rich brown shirt and a gold tie patterned in thin geometric brown designs. His hair was neatly slicked back and tamed by gel, and his unbuttoned jacket gaped open to reveal a handgun in a belt holster. Ariadne was sure it wasn't his only weapon.

"One moment." Arthur closed the door to remove the courtesy chain. "Hello, Ariadne," he said as he opened the door properly. His eyes slid appreciatively down her body before returning to her face. A faint smile hovered at the corners of his mouth for a second before he returned to watchful neutrality.

"Hello, Arthur," Ariadne said. "Mr. Cobb," she added, as Cobb strode forward to stand at Arthur's shoulder. He looked slightly more formal than last night -- dark brown trousers, a plain olive green shirt, and a brown tie -- but still casual compared to Arthur and to Jean-Claude's general taste. She supposed it made sense for a lycanthrope, since his clothes would be destroyed if he shifted.

"Jean-Claude requests your presence at the Circus of the Damned. Dinner will be provided."

"Good. Let's go," Cobb said, pushing past her into the parking lot. "I'll drive. You sit in back and give directions."

Ariadne considered telling him she'd brought a car of her own, then decided it was simpler to leave it here and send people to fetch it later. Besides, it would be more interesting to ride with Arthur and Cobb than to drive alone.

Cobb pushed a button on his keychain to unlock the little blue car, and held open the passenger side back door for her. Ariadne mentally rolled her eyes, but slipped in and adjusted her skirt without comment. Cobb closed the door behind her.

"Old habits die hard," Arthur said from the front seat, amusement lacing his voice.

"Men still held doors and chairs for women when I was human," Ariadne said, buckling her seatbelt. "I'm used to it."

Arthur made a noncommittal noise deep in his throat as Cobb got in and started the car. He turned slightly in his seat, looking back over his shoulder. "You're what, sixty years old? Not including your human life."

Ariadne hid her surprise. The Executioner could judge vampires' ages fairly accurately, but she'd never heard of anyone else with that skill. Was it something any animator could develop, or was it inborn? "More or less," she said cautiously. "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," Arthur said with a small shrug. "You do a good job of fitting in to modern life for someone born in the 1930s."

Ariadne returned his shrug. "I pay attention." Choosing to maintain the habits and appearance of another era or nation was something only the powerful or reckless could afford to do, and even those vampires were perfectly capable of camouflage should they choose to blend in. All successful predators learned how to lull prey into false security and disguise themselves from angry mobs.

"Hmm," Arthur said, and changed the subject. "Jean-Claude called us, and I presume Asher will also be present. Can you tell us who else to expect at this meeting?"

"He didn't tell me specifically who would attend," Ariadne said by way of disclaimer, "but I believe he asked the Executioner and the Ulfric. I couldn't say who else might be present." 

"His triumvirate," Cobb said. "Of course." He sounded bitter.

"It will be interesting to meet them," Arthur said, touching his companion lightly on the shoulder. He turned back to Ariadne. "Will we also have the pleasure of your company?"

Ariadne shrugged again. "If Jean-Claude wishes me to attend." She was honestly not sure whether she'd prefer to be present and so have the chance to catch any important warnings, or to be safely elsewhere and out of immediate danger if something went sideways.

"I think I'll ask him to let you stay," Arthur said, a slow smile spreading over his face. "I'd prefer to have you where I can watch." His gaze slipped down her body again -- deliberately, Ariadne suspected.

"I'm not working against you," she said, catching his eyes and trying to project a desire to trust her. Her power slid past him like a stream parting around a stone, leaving his will untouched.

"Not yet," Arthur agreed, holding her gaze.

She wanted so badly to weave her power through his, to feel the pulse under his warm skin, to sink her fangs into his flesh and taste the sweet-salt-iron rush of his blood.

"Hey," Cobb said. "We've reached the District. Which way do I turn?"

Ariadne broke her staring match with Arthur and directed Cobb to the employee parking lot of the Circus. Arthur remained half-turned in his seat, watching her, never saying a word. When the car stopped, he was the one who opened her door and silently offered to help her stand.

She ran her tongue over her fangs and let him take her hand.

\---------------

Arthur let Ariadne lead him to the back entrance of the Circus of the Damned. Her hand was cool in his fingers, and her face, bare of makeup, was very pale. She hadn't fed this evening.

There was no knob, keyhole, or visible hinges on the outside of the door: an interesting security measure. For those already inside the building, it would buy a handful of seconds while violent intruders broke down the door, and it might force nonviolent intruders to seek another entrance entirely. But if people were fleeing here in search of refuge... Well. The featureless door spoke of a fortress mentality where the people who mattered would _of course_ already be within, and to hell with anyone left beyond the pale.

It was a typical attitude among older vampires.

Ariadne raised her left hand and knocked. The door swung inward immediately, revealing Asher and a short blond man with a wide grin whose prickling energy marked him as a lycanthrope of some type. Most likely a wolf, given that this was Jean-Claude's stronghold and wolves were his animal to call.

"Ariadne," Asher said, walking forward so smoothly he seemed to glide. It wasn't a mind trick, the way it would have been for most vampires. He was just that graceful. He stopped well inside Ariadne's personal space -- by extent, too close to Arthur for comfort -- and reached forward to touch her chin.

"Asher," Ariadne said in a respectful tone, tilting her head sideways to expose the side of her throat. Asher's hand slid down over her pulse in an abbreviated version of a typical vampire greeting, then fell elegantly to his side.

"What, no hello for me?" the lycanthrope said in a gratingly flippant tone.

"No," Ariadne said, all respect dropping away like a discarded mask. "This is Arthur," -- she raised his hand by way of identification -- "and behind us is Dominick Cobb. Arthur, this is Jason Schuyler, Jean-Claude's _pomme de sang_. Ignore him."

"Don't listen to her, I'm wonderful company," Jason said, bouncing slightly on his toes, which destroyed any dignity his tailored black trousers and dark blue shirt might otherwise have lent him. Of course, considering the shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, that dignity would have been in rather short supply whatever his behavior. He kept one hand pressed against the door, holding it open. He must be somewhat more competent than he seemed, but Arthur suspected Ariadne's advice to ignore him was sound.

Arthur nodded fractionally in Jason's general direction, then returned his attention to Asher. "Thank you for arranging this meeting. Dom and I are in your debt."

Asher looked politely blank, the ruined half of his face concealed behind the curtain of his long blond hair. "So you are. Let us hope your information will settle the account."

"It will," Dom said, moving forward to stand at Arthur's right. "Enough posturing. Let's go inside before anyone gets curious about why we're hanging around a private door."

"As you wish," Asher said. He stepped back and caught the edge of the door with one hand. "Jason, inform Jean-Claude we are coming."

The werewolf nodded, a serious expression flashing across his face for a moment before the grin reappeared. "You got it," he said, and vanished into the dimly lit interior of the building.

Dom followed, though at a slower pace. "It's not in any of our interests to keep Jean-Claude waiting," he said over his shoulder. "Besides, we were promised dinner and I didn't get any lunch today."

"You had lunch. It's breakfast you missed," Arthur said, not bothering to keep his amusement out of his voice or off his face. "If you'd get up at reasonable hours, you might actually make it to a motel breakfast before they clear everything away." He glanced at Ariadne from the corner of his eye and saw her smile.

"Come inside," she said, and led him into the little entry room, which was lit by a single bare, incandescent light bulb. The far wall was blank concrete with a few boxes and crates of indeterminate age and purpose stacked against it. The left and right walls each held a single door, equipped with normal knobs and deadbolts. The door to the right was soundproofed, but imperfectly; Arthur could dimly hear the muddled roar of music, voices, and the mechanical working of carnival games that made up the public section of the Circus of the Damned. The door in the left wall presumably led downward to Jean-Claude's home and place of power.

Asher let the outer door swing shut and moved toward the left hand door. "Welcome to the Circus of the Damned," he said. "Forgive me for not offering you a tour of the public spectacle." He turned the knob -- this inner door was unlocked, an interesting contrast to the blank defense of the outer door -- and pulled it open, revealing a long staircase, more than twice as wide as what a person would expect leading to a normal storage cellar. An electrical wire ran through the upper corner of the doorway, powering more naked bulbs: one at the top of the staircase, one at the turn of the landing, and presumably more further down.

Dom brushed past Asher and clomped down the stairs with blunt determination. Arthur let go of Ariadne's hand and followed, unwilling to let Dom get around the turn and out of his sight. This, of course, meant leaving two master vampires at his back, but Asher was honorable and Arthur doubted Ariadne would resort to a physical attack in this setting.

He hurried down the steps, making no effort to be silent; there was no need for the element of surprise tonight. Dom had stopped at the base of the staircase, staring at a closed and locked door as if it had personally offended him. "There are at least a dozen people in there," Dom said without bothering to turn. "That's a lot for a peaceful meeting."

"If you have no hostile intent, you will have no need to worry," Asher said as he and Ariadne joined Dom and Arthur at the base of the stairs. "On that note, Arthur, I will need your weapons before I open the door."

Arthur sighed. He hadn't expected to get into Jean-Claude's presence while carrying a gun, especially not after he'd drawn on Asher at the strip club, but he had hoped. And it was often best to show up armed even if he knew he wouldn't stay that way -- it was a way to remind vampires that he should be taken seriously, not dismissed as a faceless potential meal.

"You can have my gun on the understanding that it will remain untouched and I'll get it back as soon as Jean-Claude and I aren't in the same room," he said, drawing his Glock from the belt holster. (It was technically concealed carry if he'd worn the jacket closed, but vampires were unlikely to report him to the police and he hadn't bothered to stop the gun from printing, so in practice it was more of a polite fiction -- "I won't shove my gun in your face" -- than actual concealment.)

Asher motioned Ariadne to take the gun. She stepped up to Arthur's side and took the Glock from his hand, her cool fingers brushing briefly against his skin. Her own hands looked ridiculously small against the magazine.

Arthur knew better than to assume small meant weak.

"I will also need any other weapons you are carrying," Asher said. "If you refuse to cooperate, I can, of course, search you by force."

"No," Arthur said.

Asher went still for a long moment. Dom tensed at Arthur's side.

"You can't be disarmed; your powers are inherent," Arthur said into the silence. "The same goes for all vampires and lycanthropes. Furthermore, if Ms. Blake is present, I highly doubt Jean-Claude would require her to surrender her gun and any other weapons she might choose to carry. I am neither wearing nor carrying any symbols of faith and I've given you my gun. Unless you mean to suggest that a simple human is a threat to the Master of St. Louis while armed only with a pair of knives..." He let the implications trail off.

Asher snarled. Dom placed a heavy hand on Arthur's shoulder, stilling any instinctive reach for his hidden knives. Behind Asher, Ariadne seemed to fade into the wall.

"You are not any sort of simple," Asher said, his composure snapping eerily back into place. "Do not insult me by pretending otherwise, necromancer."

"Animator," Arthur corrected serenely. "I wouldn't dream of claiming Ms. Blake's breadth or depth of power. I'm quite happy to restrict myself to zombies, and them only one at a time."

"Past a certain point, any level of control over the dead is too much," Asher said, his eyes flicking toward the locked door.

So there was truth behind the rumors that the Executioner could extend her power beyond raising the dead to affect the undead, such as vampires. Arthur made a note to collect twenty dollars from Eames when he arrived in St. Louis. He also made a note to keep Ms. Blake's attention pointed firmly away from himself. If she could affect vampires purely through the strength of her natural gift, instead of having to work via carefully prepared ritual magic, she might well be able to sense any interference with Lebrun.

"Nonetheless, I take your points," Asher continued. "If you swear on your soul, your power, and your hope of vengeance, that you are only carrying knives, I will let you keep them."

"I so swear," Arthur said.

Dom clapped him on the shoulder and smiled insincerely at Asher. "Great! And now that the rigmarole is out of the way, can we get on with the main event? Or do you have another set of hoops for us to jump through?"

Asher smiled thinly. "I do not. Jean-Claude, however, is his own master." He drew a ring of keys from his trouser pocket and unlocked the door, first the knob, then the two deadbolts. "After you," he said with a sweep of his hand, and let the brilliant, flickering light of a hundred candles spill through the open door.

Dom strode through immediately.

Arthur held out his left hand to Ariadne. "Shall we?"

She glanced at Asher as if for permission, then shifted his gun to her other side and slipped her fingers into his grasp. They walked through the doorway together.

\---------------

The great hall looked much more put together than it had when Ariadne had left the Circus. If she hadn't seen the construction under way, she might have thought this particular arrangement had been in place for months. The Persian rugs on the hastily assembled dais were laid out as if with a ruler; the place settings were equally precise, down to the napkins folded into elaborate cloth origami flowers; the chandelier sparkled as its crystals caught flickering candlelight from the wall sconces; and the serving table steamed with something rich and French in elegant covered dishes.

The most important difference, of course, was the collection of people sitting at the high table. Jean-Claude held pride of place in the center, with the Executioner at his right hand and the Ulfric at his left. Damian sat next to the Executioner and Jason sat next to the Ulfric, which was both a way to allow Jean-Claude's partners a subordinate of their own and a way to reinforce his implicit position as the head of the triumvirate, since Damian and Jason were members of his court.

The low table was set with four places, the outer two of which were bare save for a single wine glass and the inevitable folded napkin. Cobb stopped halfway between the door and the table, his eyes narrowed as he glanced around the room, not bothering to hide his frown.

"You seem to have been invited after all," Arthur murmured in Ariadne's ear. "Shall we?" He tugged gently on her right hand, leading her toward the leftmost chair at the lower table.

Ariadne flicked a questioning glance toward Jean-Claude. He nodded subtly.

Arthur held the chair for her, only a tiny quirk in the corner of his mouth and a hint of warmth in the set of his eyes breaking the impassiveness of his face.

"Old habits?" Ariadne said softly as she seated herself and laid the gun well to the left of her napkin, out of Arthur's easy reach.

"Mal appreciated the little touches," Arthur said, taking his own seat. He turned, hooking one arm over the chair back, and added, "Dom, stop trying to hold a staring contest with our host's chin. The sooner you sit down, the sooner we get dinner."

The Ulfric, the Executioner, and Jason all laughed. Ariadne studied them as unobtrusively as she could. She rarely saw the other members of Jean-Claude's triumvirate. Her involvement with the other preternatural groups in St. Louis was usually limited to learning the taste of their members' powers, then occasionally locating them so Jean-Claude could send messages to the appropriate places and thus gain the illusion of omniscience. That could be done quite easily by standing on the outskirts of a meeting or working as a servitor -- the way two young male vampires and one female human hanger-on were doing tonight, standing at attention behind the serving table in artfully slashed gold shirts and tight black trousers.

She had seen both the Executioner and the Ulfric during the battle with the Earthmover, of course, but that was hardly a good gauge of their behavior in less fraught settings. They both seemed outwardly unprepossessing, merely a small, solidly-built woman with curly black hair and a put-upon expression, and a tall, tanned man with loose brown hair and a tired set to his shoulders. She wore a leather jacket over a deep red blouse, while he had loosened his tie to undo the top button of his pale green shirt. They looked like a pair of tourists. Normal. Almost _too_ normal -- which might explain part of why Jean-Claude was so drawn to them. Generally people who fell into the preternatural world accepted its values as their own, or died. It was rare for anyone to survive while still clinging to the notion that they belonged to mundane human society more than to the so-called monsters. Yet the Executioner and the Ulfric had not only lived but risen to positions of power.

Cobb took the seat beside Arthur, scowling down at the napkin on his plate. Asher sat smoothly to his right.

"Be welcome this night," Jean-Claude said, flicking his fingers toward the servitors. "Anita, Richard, may I introduce Dominick Cobb and Arthur, lately of Oakland. They are here with information on the Council. Dominick, Arthur, may I introduce Anita Blake, also known as the Executioner, and Richard, Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke clan. Jason you have met, and Damien you already know."

"It's an honor to meet you," Arthur said, his voice smooth and low. Beside him, Cobb gave an abrupt jerk of a nod.

"If you're not here to cause trouble, I'm glad to welcome you," the Ulfric said. His smile was full of implied teeth, though he projected more tired determination than actual threat.

"Yeah. About that. Why are they here, Jean-Claude?" the Executioner said, leaning forward with her elbows on the table. "More to the point, why are Richard and I here? Since when do you need us to play happy families in front of people who aren't vampires?"

"The Council's decisions concern us all, _ma petite_ , as you may recall from the Traveler's and Beastmaster's visit," Jean-Claude said as the three servitors carried over cups of French onion soup and bottles of red wine. They set soup before those who could eat and poured wine for everyone. Ariadne raised her glass to her face and breathed in the scent. Then she ventured a tiny sip, barely enough to wet her tongue and ghost against the roof of her mouth.

Her throat tightened in protest and she set the glass down, knowing she could not try again for a quarter hour at the least. Vampirism made the body violently incapable of ingesting anything but blood, but fluids could be tricked past the guard-posts a trickle at a time if one was careful. Red wine was the most popular choice -- its color could help fool the mind into suppressing the gag reflex, and if one could only taste pale echoes of true flavors, it was best to drink something that was already strong and complex.

At the high table, the Executioner was frowning at Jean-Claude. "Point taken," she said, "but we can't be all that important to the Council, no matter how much Padma hates us. I bet they make all kinds of decisions that don't mean a thing to you and your position."

"They do," Arthur said before Jean-Claude could answer. "However, neither Dom nor I would waste Jean-Claude's time with that sort of information. Our news concerns you all, Ms. Blake, whether directly or indirectly, and I'm sure you understand the importance of being forewarned in potentially unstable situations." Beside him, Cobb grimaced into his soup.

The Executioner switched her glare to Arthur. "You're saying trouble's coming to St. Louis. Great. So why do you know about it, and what makes you care enough to warn us? I doubt it's out of the goodness of your hearts."

Ariadne tensed, but Arthur simply smiled. "I never said it was. We traded our warning for favors."

"Those being?" the Executioner asked, leaning forward with a suspicious expression.

"None of your business," Arthur said, still calm and smiling. "As for how we know... Dom and I may not have any official place in vampire society these days, but we know people who do, and some of them still owe us friendship or favors. We find it useful in our line of work."

"Arthur is, among other things, what you would call a bounty hunter, _ma petite_ ," Jean-Claude said before the Executioner could ask. "He is valued because he works within the community instead of from without, and thus can often resolve issues without unnecessary violence or disruption of territories. Since the death of his wife, Dominick has joined his friend."

The Executioner continued to glare at Arthur. "So you get paid to kill monsters, but you just help them be more careful or go rampage in other places? Nice. And if you don't have any official place in vampire society 'these days,' what place did you used to have? What dirty work did you do for--"

"I'm sure your little display of dominance posturing is very important to you, Anita," the Ulfric interrupted, setting down his spoon, "but I'd rather hear what these two people came to warn us about. The sooner we know, the sooner we can plan how to react."

Arthur's smile widened, though his pulse remained steady and his scent unruffled. "A man after my own heart," he said. "In brief, then: the Council has had an empty seat since the Earthmover's death. When Jean-Claude officially abdicated his claim on it through right of conquest, others began jockeying for position. It's come down to two claimants and the Council has decided that their contest should take place where the Earthmover died. Fisher and Saito will arrive in St. Louis on Sunday night. The choice of challenge venue is yours."

Silence.

Arthur picked up his spoon and began to eat his soup.

\---------------

Jean-Claude kept good chefs, Arthur decided as he savored the first spoonful of soup, the saltiness of the cheese and bread melding perfectly with the dark broth and the slippery warmth of the onion slices. He managed one more spoonful before the inevitable reaction to his news burst like a violent wave.

Ms. Blake's, "Who are these people and--" clashed with the Ulfric's, "Wait a minute, are you saying--" and the lesser wolf's, "Oh, fucking hell, we're all going to--" Damien, Ariadne, and Asher simply went still, waiting out the storm. Vampires were like that, Arthur thought absently. It was probably a death magic thing.

He sank into the well of his own power and let the noise wash over him, waiting for Jean-Claude to yank on his people's leashes. The lesser wolf -- Jason Schuyler -- quieted first, presumably glared or called into submission. Ms. Blake and the Ulfric continued to talk over each other for several more seconds, until Jean-Claude set his hands on their shoulders.

This was evidently unusual enough to distract them. Jean-Claude took full advantage of that momentary silence.

"Please, Richard, Anita, I know you are concerned. Believe me when I say I share your anger. But we will learn nothing if we do not give ourselves the space to think and Arthur and Dominick the chance to elaborate and answer our questions."

The Ulfric gave the vampire a hard look, but held his peace. Ms. Blake was evidently a harder sell. She crossed her arms and glared at Jean-Claude. "This is exactly the kind of shit I didn't have to deal with before I met you," she proclaimed.

"You have my sincerest apologies, _ma petite_ ," Jean-Claude said. "Consider this: the sooner we learn the shape of the situation, the sooner you can safely wash your hands of, as you say, this particular instance of shit." He favored Ms. Blake with a coaxing smile.

"Smarmy as ever," Dom muttered under his breath. Asher tensed, and Arthur stretched his right leg sideways to grind his heel warningly into Dom's foot.

"Fine," Ms. Blake conceded, letting her hands fall back to her sides. "Ask your questions and get this show over with."

"As you wish," Jean-Claude said, removing his hand from her shoulder with a parting caress -- which was more subtly mirrored by his left hand on the Ulfric's shirt. Arthur kept his face politely blank and kicked himself for not noticing that Jean-Claude had been touching _both_ members of his triumvirate the entire time. Neither of them had seemed to notice either, despite their clear antagonism toward him. Interesting.

"You said last night that you knew the subject of the petition which Saito and Fisher brought to the Council," Jean-Claude said, folding his hands neatly before him on the empty tablecloth where his plate would have rested. "Tonight you say that the Council has decided that they are the only official claimants for the Earthmover's seat, and their contest must take place in my city. I had not been aware that either Fisher or Saito had an interest in joining the Council, yet you speak as if this is common knowledge. Explain."

Dom leaned forward, staring earnestly at Jean-Claude's chin. "It's not common knowledge, which is why the information is valuable. The Council wants to wrong-foot you, make you look foolish, weak, and unprepared to deal with people of influence. They're not happy about the last few years -- neither the Earthmover's fate nor the implied insult you offered by turning down his seat."

"Yes, this is obvious, but why do Saito and Fisher wish to claim the seat at all?" Jean-Claude said, clearly unmoved by Dom's projected warmth.

"It's an extension of their dick-measuring contest," Arthur said. He set down his spoon with a twinge of regret. The soup was really quite good, but words were more important right now.

Ms. Blake laughed, brief and almost grudging, like he'd slipped past her determined dislike for him. Beside him, he felt more than saw Ariadne quiver with suppressed mirth. He quashed a sudden, silly urge to smile.

"They've been feuding since Fisher moved to Australia in the 1800s," Arthur continued. "My guess is that Fisher wants the seat and Saito wants to prevent him from claiming it -- and of course wouldn't be unappreciative of having that power himself."

"Your guess," Asher said.

"He held our fealty through Mal," Arthur said, letting cool darkness insulate him from the lacerating pain of his memories. "When Lebrun destroyed her, that bond broke."

"And no other was established?" Jean-Claude asked, his voice seeming to whisper like silk around Arthur's throat.

Arthur met Jean-Claude's eyes, his mind and heart wrapped in the stillness and silence of his own power. "No other bond was established." At least not for the definition of 'bond' he'd used in his previous statement. He owed fealty to no one.

 _Loyalty_ was an entirely different question, but Jean-Claude hadn't asked about that. Technically.

And technicalities were enough to blur a vampire's truth sense, at least when the person lying by omission or hair-splitting definition was an animator and could mirror some of the vampire's own searching power back in a subtly confusing echo. Jean-Claude relaxed minutely, and his court seemed to take a metaphorical breath and step back from the edge of violence. Except for Ms. Blake, whose frown deepened.

Arthur wondered if she'd learned to use her necromantic abilities in this fashion, or if she was simply strong enough (and consequently so prone to blunt-instrument thinking) that she'd never bothered to explore the nuances of her own power. He definitely needed to speak with her outside of this orchestrated setting, both to learn her strengths and failings and to soften her negative impression of him. He and Dom couldn't afford to have her investigate them too closely before the duel.

"I see. Naturally you wish vengeance for Mallorie's death," Jean-Claude said. "I presume Fisher will bring Lebrun as his second for the duel."

"Probably," Dom agreed, smiling with slightly more teeth than was strictly polite.

Jean-Claude's face went blank as stone and the room once again seemed tense and airless. "That would make Lebrun my guest, along with his master. If you remain in St. Louis, with or without my permission, and attack anyone to whom I have extended hospitality--"

"Fate worse than death, understood," said Dom. "You're not the only who spent time in Belle Morte's court. I know the rules."

Arthur ground his heel into Dom's foot again. "Our apologies, it's been a long week. On that note, we've delivered our information in good faith. Asher has agreed to pass our message to Belle Morte. Will you grant us safe passage in your city for two weeks and free right to ask your people for any information about Lebrun?"

"You may ask. Whether anyone answers is up to them," Jean-Claude said, still blank faced. "What degree of safe passage do you seek?"

"Not guest right," Arthur assured him. "We wouldn't abuse your hospitality that way, especially not now. We simply want a token to show we're here with your permission instead of as intruders. St. Louis is a good place to network and it's hard to keep stocked up on magical supplies on the road."

"Tell me about it. I hate out-of-town consults," said Ms. Blake, her face cracking into a brief smile. For a moment Arthur saw part of what drew men to her -- the sheer force of will with which she approached her life was quite attractive when channeled into something other than self-righteous anger. Then suspicion lowered her brows again. "I don't care what Jean-Claude says, I don't want you two poking around my city unsupervised."

"And you say you hate playing power games," the Ulfric muttered, just barely loud enough for Arthur to catch. Ms. Blake shot him a poisonous glare.

Jean-Claude reached to either side and set his hands on his triumvirate partners' wrists. " _Ma petite_ , Richard, please, not tonight." The Ulfric yanked his hand away from the contact. Ms. Blake switched her glare from the werewolf to the vampire.

"You're welcome to tail us if that will ease your mind, Ms. Blake," Arthur offered. "I'm sure the Master of the City or the Ulfric can assign someone to play babysitter during the times you have more important business." He paused, then added, "But please, not Mr. Schuyler. Discretion doesn't seem to be part of his mental vocabulary."

"Hey!" said the werewolf in question, sitting bolt upright from his insouciant slouch. Ms. Blake, the Ulfric, and Jean-Claude all began speaking at once, talking over each other and Schuyler's continuing protests. Dom grimaced and resumed eating his soup, his patience for politics evidently worn thin.

On Arthur's left, Ariadne quivered in silent mirth once again. Arthur let his foot drift sideways to make contact with her elaborate golden sandal -- a gentle, questioning tap. After a moment, her foot pressed back, then began to trail slowly up his ankle, her bare toes digging into the fabric of his sock like blunted kitten claws.

Arthur returned his attention to the dais as the cacophony settled into something vaguely resembling order. "I'm not playing into your paranoia," the Ulfric was saying, leaning forward to gesture his refusal to Ms. Blake. "Get your damn leopards to do your dirty work if you're that shaken. Or how about your little protégé, Kirkland? You've dragged him into everything else, why not stalking too?"

"Richard. This is neither the time nor the place," Jean-Claude said, and this time there was supernatural force behind the hand he placed on the Ulfric's shoulder, shoving the man back into his chair. "If _ma petite_ wishes to investigate, that is her prerogative. Do not mistake caution for fear." Turning to Ms. Blake, he continued. "Out of respect for Richard's sensibilities, I will not assign a wolf to the day watch. For the night, however, you may have Ariadne."

Ariadne's toes clenched against Arthur's skin.

Her nails drew blood.

\---------------

"I may _what?_ " the Executioner demanded.

"If you wish to keep watch on Arthur and Dominick for the duration of their stay in St. Louis, Ariadne is at your disposal for that task," Jean-Claude said. "She remains under my authority in all other ways, of course, but if it will ease your mind, this is a small thing well within my power to offer."

Ariadne slowly and carefully uncurled her toes and gave Arthur's leg an apologetic pat. He nudged back, apparently unfazed by the tiny trickle of blood she could feel soaking into his sock. She spared a second to regret that they were in public; she would very much have enjoyed licking the wound until it closed.

"I take it Ariadne's the one sitting next to Arthur?" the Executioner asked.

"I am," Ariadne said. She rose from her chair and offered a slight bow toward the high table before resuming her seat.

"And you're okay with Jean-Claude loaning you out like a piece of furniture?" the Executioner said, leaning forward with a tight scowl on her face.

Ariadne shrugged. "He's the Master of the City. I have neither the strength nor the inclination to challenge him. So yes, I go where he sends me."

The Executioner's scowl deepened and her hands clenched on the edge of the high table. "Like a good little girl. Right. If you're so soft and harmless, what good will you do me as a surveillance partner?"

Ariadne hesitated, looking toward Jean-Claude. Her tracking abilities weren't precisely a secret, but Nikolaos had never publicized them either and he had continued that tendency toward discretion. The Executioner was known to be somewhat paranoid, and if she thought Ariadne had spied on her in the past...

"Ariadne has a particular gift for tracking," Jean-Claude said. "Once she has tasted someone's power, she can find them anywhere within her range, which is several miles in radius. She is also discreet and quite experienced working within a chain of command." He smiled at the Executioner's skeptical look. "She will help you with surveillance only, _ma petite_. If you wish backup of a more forceful nature, you will have to look elsewhere while Arthur and Dominick are under my writ of free passage."

Damned with faint praise, Ariadne thought, tipping her head to acknowledge Jean-Claude's assessment. "Do you want my assistance?" she asked the Executioner. "I would appreciate knowing so I can make arrangements to cover my shifts at Guilty Pleasures if necessary."

The Executioner blinked. Then she turned to pin Jean-Claude with an incredulous look. "Does every single person under your power have to work in that strip club? Is that a guild membership requirement? What's her trick -- playing to the ones too scared to go for real underage humans?"

"Ariadne is the manager," Jean-Claude said, voice utterly stripped of inflection.

Ariadne went still reflexively. That was a bad sign. A very bad sign.

Yet the Executioner either failed to notice or failed to care. "Sure she is, because the big bad vamps are going to listen to a single word she says. How can you do this to people? What gives you the right?"

"I am the Master of the City. All master vampires who reside here do so on my sufferance; all others rise and retain control only by my will," Jean-Claude said, his voice still terrifyingly calm and even. "As for Ariadne, do not mistake a lack of ambition for weakness. She survived Nikolaos and gave me her fealty freely thereafter despite being a master in her own right. She is not suited for leadership, but she does not need a protector."

The Executioner closed her mouth and gave Ariadne another look, more measuring this time. Ariadne tilted her head and proffered a bright smile, doing her best to seem harmless and nearly human. It was an act she'd honed through long practice, on the theory that camouflage was both the best defense and a useful offensive technique, if only to unbalance any potential foes. It did cause occasional difficulties with humans, whose instinctive visual assessment of her tended to trump their intellectual knowledge of vampiric abilities, but a discreet flash of fangs and an immovable grip on fragile bones could cure that disconnect if necessary. And if not, well, a shy young woman was so much less memorable than a dangerous creature of the night.

She hoped the Executioner would decide her assistance was unnecessary. Arthur already knew her greatest secret, but dream-walking was not the only thing she'd kept private over the decades. If she spent the next several nights in his company -- because while her gift was invaluable for determining locations, it was useless for detailed surveillance -- she hated to think what he might learn. Attractive though he was, she had no intention of letting anyone close enough to truly hurt her, and even less interest in potentially getting tangled in Arthur and Cobb's own troubles.

Alas, luck seemed to be against her. The Executioner settled back in her seat with a considering frown. "Right. Sorry. So you're how Jean-Claude pulls his mysterious all-knowing shtick."

"Merely one of the many tools at his disposal," Ariadne demurred.

"Whatever. That sounds like a useful trick. Okay. Consider yourself conscripted. Until this Council crap is over, you're on call from dusk to dawn. Your standing assignment is to keep tabs on these two and tell me if they start acting suspicious."

In the corner of her eye, Ariadne saw Arthur start to roll his eyes, then think better of the motion. She tapped her toes against his ankle. His lip twitched, subtly, as if he were biting back a smile.

"I'm afraid my definition of suspicious behavior may not match yours and I'd hate for us to have any miscommunications. Perhaps periodic reports?" Ariadne suggested. "I can text you my cell phone number -- I assume Jean-Claude has yours."

"He does," the Ulfric said, face and voice caught halfway between annoyance and amusement. "Oh, does he ever."

"And no sense of when a text is more appropriate than a call," the Executioner added in a similar tone.

"You wound me," said Jean-Claude, face still blank, but he sounded sardonic rather than empty. His temper had passed, then.

"I wish," the Ulfric said. The Executioner shared a tiny smile with him, across Jean-Claude's body. Then they both seemed to realize they were smiling and the moment shattered.

The Executioner turned back to Ariadne, just a shade too fast for nonchalance. "Yeah, text me every time they go to a new location, and every hour if they're not moving. Call if something big goes down, like a fight or a meeting with anyone important."

"I understand," Ariadne said. She paused, wondering how much the Executioner had sensed from Jean-Claude's guests, and how much Jean-Claude might have told his triumvirate. Then she decided she didn't care; if she was inconvenienced, then Arthur could be inconvenienced along with her. "You are aware that Cobb is a lycanthrope and Arthur is an animator. Do you wish me to report if and when they use their abilities?"

The Executioner glanced dismissively at Cobb -- "Only if he shifts," she said -- before settling a sharp, assessing gaze on Arthur. "Wait a minute. An animator named Arthur. You're the guy Larry said was fishing around at my job this morning! Why were you spying on me when you say you're only here to do business with Jean-Claude?"

For a moment Arthur's pulse jumped where it thrummed against Ariadne's toes. Then the seductive chill of his power pulled inward and his heartbeat steadied. "It's a sensible precaution to learn about the major players in the local preternatural community before getting tangled in their political affairs, however tangentially and briefly," he said. "Additionally, I _am_ an animator. I figured I'd pick up a couple freelance jobs while I'm in St. Louis so I don't raise roadkill by accident."

"You don't raise any zombies unless I'm there to keep an eye on you," the Executioner said.

Arthur shrugged. "Your city, your rules. Would you prefer me to arrange some work via your employer, or simply to take some of your own scheduled appointments off your hands? We can inform Mr. Vaughn or not, whichever is most convenient for you."

"Dealing with Bert is never convenient, but we're going to do this by the book so we have a record when things go south," the Executioner said. "I'll tell Ariadne when and where you should meet me. It'll take a couple days to get the paperwork through."

"I can give you a copy of my certification from the Resurrection Company, if that will speed things up," Arthur offered.

The Executioner looked sour. "Send it to the office. I'll tell our secretaries to expect it. But use fax or email. I don't want you around my coworkers. They have enough of their own problems; they don't need to get caught in any Council craziness."

"Nobody needs that," Arthur agreed.

That, Ariadne thought, was probably the truest thing anyone had said so far this night.

To her right, Cobb sighed and tossed his crumpled napkin onto the table. "Great. We've passed on our news, Jean-Claude's given us permission to stay, and Blake's put us on a leash. Are we done here or are we going to talk in angry circles all night long? The food's good, but not _that_ good, and frankly I have better things I could be doing."

Ariadne took a tiny sip of her wine and waited for the inevitable explosion.

\---------------

Dom's methods for short-circuiting the tedious posturing of preternatural politics were far from graceful, Arthur reflected, but they were certainly effective. As Ms. Blake and the Ulfric began to talk at once, turned, and redirected their ire toward each other, Jean-Claude caught Asher's eyes and flicked his fingers in careless dismissal.

Asher rose smoothly from his seat and gestured toward one of the inner doors of the room. "As you so bluntly pointed out, Dominick, your business with Jean-Claude is completed. I will accompany you while Ariadne retrieves her telephone, after which you may go where you wish."

Arthur set his hand on the back of Ariadne's chair as he stood. At her slight nod, he drew the seat backward to let her step freely away from the table. She favored him with a single raised eyebrow and a fleeting brush of toes against his ankle, the contact hidden by the swing of her hem.

Mal had considered such courtesies her due, accepting them as a queen collecting tribute from her subjects. Ariadne seemed to consider them an unnecessary complication at best, but she fell easily into the patterns. Old habits, Arthur decided, and an unwillingness to rock the boat. Perhaps also a willingness to play along with a bit of mutually amusing frivolity.

"My lady," he murmured, and raised her hand to kiss the air just over her knuckles.

When he glanced up, he could see the imprint of her fangs against the inside of her lower lip as she stifled a smile. He let his eyes show his silent laughter in return.

He didn't want her trailing him and Dom. She was far too sharp for his peace of mind, and no matter how he spread out his purchases, she could quite easily keep a list and give it to Ms. Blake to interpret. Additionally, the ritual he had in mind needed to be cast at midnight, which would be impossible with Ariadne present.

Even so, Arthur couldn't help liking her company.

As Ariadne picked up his Glock and led the way out of the room, Arthur wondered, yet again, whether there was any way to not simply ensure Ariadne's neutrality -- a stance she seemed inclined to of her own accord, despite her obligations to Jean-Claude -- but to win her actively to their side. He suspected not. Neither he nor Dom had much expectation of leaving St. Louis alive. Saito likely had the edge over Fisher even with Lebrun in the mix, but Jean-Claude was no fool and would not take kindly to the word games Arthur had played with his offer of free passage.

Destroying Lebrun's power would drain him, and the physical fight would drain Dom. Eames might have the wherewithal to whisk them away from the Circus, but he had no chance of standing against Jean-Claude on his own and would not bother to try. He was fond of Arthur, but not to that degree, and his favor would be long-since repaid by that point.

No, Ariadne had no reason to throw in with them and every reason not to.

A pity. He would have liked to dream with her again. He had never encountered a magic like that before, and its implications were fascinating. But Mal came first, until Lebrun had paid full price for her death.

The basement and sub-basement of the Circus were built entirely of stone, not a hint of concrete or brick to be seen. The effect was vaguely reminiscent of a medieval fortress, if not for the utter regularity of the corridors and the modern height of the doors. Arthur absently slotted each turn and closed door into a mental map as they walked toward wherever Ariadne kept her cell phone. He would have to sketch the route on paper once he and Dom were free of surveillance. Most likely the information would be useless, but it was best to be prepared for all eventualities, however unlikely.

Finally Ariadne paused in front of one door -- like all the others, it was featureless, blank, and very, very solid -- and sent Asher a slanting look whose nuances Arthur couldn't quite see. Asher promptly slid between her and Arthur, then took a step forward to force Arthur back across the hallway.

"A lady deserves her privacy," Asher said, the visible half of his mouth quirking ever so slightly upward to reveal a fleeting glint of fang.

"Of course," Arthur agreed, and turned to look at Dom rather than the slice of room he might have been able to see over Asher's shoulder for the second before Ariadne shut herself in what was apparently her private room. Or suite, more likely. She was a master vampire, after all, and vampires were very keen on marking distinctions of rank with increased privileges and and possessions.

"We have a guest for the night," Arthur said to Dom in a carefully idle tone. "I have no idea what people do for fun in St. Louis. Any ideas?"

Dom shrugged. "I don't know, a movie? Why're you asking me? You have the internet. Look something up. I just want something more to eat than soup and arguments."

"Dinner first, then," Arthur decided. "And blood for the lady, which argues for finding a restaurant within the District. Or should we wait here while she arranges her own meal?" he added, turning back toward Asher.

Asher tilted one shoulder in an understated shrug. "That is Ariadne's choice. I note you have neglected one option, however. You may offer to feed her yourself." He flashed that tiny, glinting smile again.

Arthur smiled back. "I might. But not on the first date."

"Surely this counts as the second date, though?" Ariadne said unexpectedly. Arthur blinked, wondering when and how she had opened the door without him noticing the change in the light or feeling the shift in the air. She smiled up at him, her lower lip artfully concealing the length of her fangs; the expression made her look achingly young and harmless, especially since she had changed out of the golden dress and into a simpler rose-colored blouse, pleated brown skirt, and brown boots just tall enough to cover her ankles. She had a pink and gold paisley scarf around her neck and a brown messenger bag slung over one shoulder, easily large enough to hold a phone.

Or a gun. Speaking of which, she still had his Glock, Arthur reminded himself, and there was no telling whether she had chambered a round while alone in her suite. Not that she would need a gun to be dangerous. Ariadne might not be interested in politics, but no master vampire could ever count as harmless. Particularly not an intelligent one.

"I know last night began as business," Ariadne continued, "but I feel we grew quite intimate later on."

Arthur raised one eyebrow. Did she really want to talk about dreamwalking in front of Jean-Claude's second, no matter how obliquely?

Ariadne glanced swiftly at Asher to ensure she was out of his line of sight. Then she winked. "I had such fascinating dreams..."

Arthur gave in and grinned back. He tried not to smile too much or too widely -- dimples were not helpful in cultivating a dangerous image -- but in this particular battle, they might be a better weapon than his standard tools. "I would hate to disappoint you," he said. "But even so, I'd rather go too slow than too fast. Audacity is all very well and good, but I find that anticipation makes rewards sweeter in the end."

"I'm sure you'll be delicious," Ariadne said. "Until then, I know a bar that I'm told does a mean fried chicken, and definitely has fresh blood on tap. Shall we?"

"Hey Dom, what are your thoughts on fried chicken?" Arthur asked.

"It's food. I'm hungry. Where does thought enter that equation?" Dom said, light and wry and Arthur held his breath for a moment, unwilling to turn and see the dark circles under his friend's eyes. If he didn't look, he could almost convince himself that Dom was happy and in a minute Mal would finish politicking and exchanging terrible French compliments with Jean-Claude and sweep them off on some grand and ridiculous tour of what she considered the highlights of the city. _"Making memories for the children, you understand,"_ she would say.

If only.

"Fair point. Fried chicken it is," Arthur said. "Lead the way, Ariadne. We're at your mercy."

Ariadne tucked her free hand into the crook of his elbow. "I'll be gentle," she said. "No biting until the the third date, as requested. In lieu of such scandalous pastimes, might I recommend visiting the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art? In the years since Addison v. Clark, many institutions have begun offering special after-dark hours on weekends for an increased entrance fee, and I think you might find the exhibits interesting from a professional standpoint. It's always interesting to learn where exactly the line falls between holy symbol and simple paint or metal, though I confess I'm still not certain how much of the effect relies on the faith of the artist and how much on the faith of whoever might be viewing the work, or whether--"

Wrapping them in a stream of careless words, she led Arthur and Dom upward into the whirl of the city night.

\---------------------------------------------

**End of Chapter Three**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Museum of Contemporary Religious Art](http://www.slu.edu/mocra.xml) is a genuine St. Louis point of interest, though as vampires are not actually real, I'm afraid the night visiting hours Ariadne mentions are not real either.
> 
> Next chapter we will get back to Eames, I promise. :-)


End file.
